An Integrated SVM and Fuzzy AHP Approach for Selecting Third Party Logistics Providers

The selection of third party logistics (3PL) providers is an important issue for enterprises to outsource their logistics business. In this paper, a new integrated model is put forward for selecting 3PL providers based on support vector machine (SVM) and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP). In the first stage, the support vector machine (SVM) is used to classify the primary 3PL provider samples into four types which are excellent, good, medium and bad respectively. Then we can obtain the excellent samples which are the candidates for the second stage selection. In the second stage, the FAHP is used to evaluate the selected excellent samples in the first stage, so we can obtain the sorting results for the excellent samples and the optimal samples. The results of the case study show that the model is reasonable and effective and it can provide an important reference for enterprises to select 3PL providers. Streszczenie. W artykule przedstawiono nowy zintegrowany model umozliwiający przyśpieszenie selekcji dostawcy 3PL (third party logistics). Model wykorzystuje metode SVM (suport vector machine) i FAHP (fuzzy analytic hierarchy proces). (Zintegrowana metoda selekcji dostawcy 3PL wykorzystująca mechanizm SVM i FAHP)