Analysis of third party reverse logistics provider using interpretive structural modeling

Due to growing economic environment and the introduction of new technologies in marketing, another topic of great interest to logistics today is the use of contract or third party services. In the complicated business world, the company is involved in reuse, recycling, and remanufacturing functions using a third party logistics provider which has an impact on the total performance of the firm. In the development of the reverse logistics concept and practice, the selection of providers for the specific function of reverse logistics support becomes more important. After scanning the surplus of literatures, it was concluded that multiple dimensions and attributes must be used in the evaluation and selection of 3PRLP. The attributes play an important role in selecting a third party reverse logistics provider (3PRLP). Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology is adopted in this model, which can be used for identifying and summarizing relationships among specific attributes for selecting the best third party reverse logistics provider among the 'n' 3PRLPs. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.