Fourth party logistics firm assessment using a novel neutrosophic MCDM

Abstract

The fourth party logistics (4PL) is an combiner that designs and implements the holistic supply chain solutions by using skills, knowledge, technology and resources of the service provider and its customer. A 4PL provider is also a technological service provider with eligible intellectual capital and the sufficient computer/software infrastructure. Defining the most appropriate 4PL service provider from the alternatives is not easy for companies, the solution can be addressed within the framework of the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem, and subjective and uncertain data are required for this solution. “Fuzzy set theory” is a helpful tool for dealing with such subjectivity and uncertainty. In recent times, extensions of fuzzy sets have been evolved to address and describe the subjectivities and uncertainties more widely. Neutrosophic sets are one of the extensions of fuzzy sets, and unlike other extensions, they use the independent indeterminacy-membership function, thereby extracting important information and improving the accuracy of the decision-making process. A neutronophic MCDM method was proposed for the assessment of 4PL providers’ performance. In the application part of the study, neutrosophic language scale was used by three experts to evaluate the performance of 4PL providers. Then the closeness coefficient of each alternative was computed and sequenced in descending order. We also presented a comparative analysis with neutrosphic TOPSIS method. The results determined that the proposed neutrosophic MCDM method could be used in the performance evaluation of 4PL providers and similar problems.