Developing New Services for 3PL Services Providers Using Fuzzy QFD : A LOGINET Case Study

The growing healthy relation among shippers and Third-Party Logistics (3PL) services providers boosts logistics services expansion. About 20% growth has been witnessed in logistics outsourcing globally. Seeing the market potential, many 3PL services providers are eager to venture their massive expansion plan to widen their service spectrum and geographic reach. Expansion of services in the new domain requires huge investment, which needs a strategic approach. 3PL services providers need to foresee the Returns on Investments (ROI) by forecasting customers' needs. Assessment of customers' needs offers a great challenge and hence a systematic methodology must be followed. 3PL services providers also need systematic performance evaluation in order to improve their weaknesses. This paper presents an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and fuzzy synthetic evaluation model for the systematic performance evaluation of 3PL services providers. Based on the detailed performance analysis, 3PL services providers may reveal their competitive position in the market. The paper also presents a case study of LOGINET, a 3PL service provider. Based on its detailed performance analysis, a fuzzy QFD methodology for future expansion is described