3pl firm selection with integrated multi-criteria decision making methods - an application within the scope of project logistics

Although the number of companies that businesses compete with is increasing day by day, achieving success in this competition is closely related not only to the quality of the product produced, but also to the improvement and effectiveness of the process as a whole. The fact that trade has gained an international dimension from the local level makes it necessary to evaluate this activity in terms of the connection between production and consumption points. In order to ensure this efficiency and gain a long-term competitive advantage, businesses need strategic investments that will reduce international logistics costs. These logistics strategies, which will reduce costs along with customer satisfaction, often bring the obligation to work with the right partner. Carrying out logistics services with an external service provider instead of in-house will help the company focus on its main field of activity and will bring success. With this study, it is aimed to carry out the selection procedures of the third party logistics (3PL) service provider company that will carry out all logistics activities in this process within the scope of project logistics of a company that produces heavy tonnage products and delivers them to customers in different parts of the world.. In addition, since it is a field that has not been studied before, determining what the most important criteria in the 3PL firm selection stage and presenting a new model by integrating multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods are the other aims of the study. The importance degrees of the criteria were determined by the comparison of the results obtained as a result of literature review, interviews with academicians and experts in the company where the study was carried out. Within the scope of the study, ANP, MARCOS, WASPAS and MAIRCA multi-criteria decision making techniques were used in an integrated manner.. Rankings of alternative companies were obtained by integrating the weights of the criteria with the MARCOS, WASPAS and MAIRCA methods obtained by ANP. The ranking result obtained by each method was combined with the BORDA counting method and the final ranking result was found. According to the findings obtained by study, the criteria with the highest importance in 3PL firm selection process within the scope of project logistics were found to be experience in similar products for the set of general characteristics of the firm, technical capacity for the competency set, sustainable low cost for the cost set, customer satisfaction for the quality set, and a sustainable relationship for the relationship factors set. As a result of the BORDA counting method, the best alternative company was A2. This company was followed by A1 and A3 companies, respectively. Another result obtained from the study is that the established model was successful because similar results were obtained from the different methods used.