AN AHP-ELECTRE I APPROACH FOR 3PL-PROVIDER SELECTION

In today's increasingly competitive business world, many companies outsource their logistics activities to third-party logistics providers (3PL-providers) to reduce costs and focus on core competencies. To integrate 3PL-providers into their supply chains, companies must select the most efficient 3PL-provider that meets their requirements for reliability and responsiveness. In this research note, a hybrid method combining the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and ELECTRE I is developed for multi-criterion decision-making to select 3PL-providers. The AHP method is first used to determine the weighting assigned to the evaluation criteria and to a set of 3PL-providers, and the ELECTRE I method is used to deduce the final list of the best 3PL-providers. This approach is then validated by applying it to a real company in France. The proposed approach can be used to help decision-makers and practitioners improve their 3PL-provider selection process by considering the criteria related to their requirements.