A research on determination of the criteria and their relative weights to be used in in carrier selection by the perishable product manufacturers

The importance of cold chain logistics is increasing in our country as well as all over the world. In particular, the provision and distribution of products that directly affect human health such as foodstuffs and medicinal products in accordance with customer demands, under the appropriate conditions made it necessary to manage the entire cold chain process with high quality standards. For this reason, manufacturing companies needed carriers that provide professional services to deliver their perishable products to their customers under the desired conditions. However, the choice of the carrier is perceived as a more complex process by many manufacturers, given the cold chain factor. The aim of this study, considering the increasing food demand day by day, is determination of the importance of the criteria that the food producing enterprises take into consideration in the selection of the carrier enterprise that distributes the food in the country by using the data obtained in expert opinion surveys. In the first and second chapters of the study, firstly the concepts of perishable product, cold chain, logistics and carrier selection are explained in detail. In the third chapter, the information about Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, which is one of the multiple decision making methods which is frequently preferred in selection problems and used in thesis application, is provided. Then the criteria used in the selection of carrier enterprises that distribute food in Turkey were determined and the opinion of 15 experts was taken in order to determine the importance of these criteria. In the study, for the selection of the carrier enterprise that distributes the food in domestic, pairwise comparison of the criteria has been done by using the answers from the independent evaluators. Then, weights of the criteria were determined by applying the steps of AHP method. The percentages of these weights were calculated in the conclusion part and respectively as a result of the evaluations made, transportation and storage cost as the most important criterion, on time distribution second, customer service and reliability third, enterprise reputation fourth, experience fifth, innovation on and effectiveness of cold chain operations sixth, information technology applications for monitoring and tracking seventh, financial situation eighth, network management ninth and empathy is determined as the least important criterion.