Environmental sustainability of logistics service provider: an ANP-QFD approach
The International Journal of Logistics Management
ISSN: 0957-4093
Article publication date: 10 August 2015
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology with systematic metrics for logistics service providers (LSPs) to develop their environmental sustainability performance in the context of green supply chain management.
Design/methodology/approach
An integrated analytical approach which combines analytical network process (ANP) with quality function deployment (QFD) is proposed to develop LSPs’ environmental sustainability performance. In the approach, QFD is used to translate customer requirements (CRs) for “green” concerns into multiple criteria for LSP’s design requirements (DRs). ANP is used to analyze the inter-relationships among the various CRs and DRs.
Findings
The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by applying it to a global LSP. A case study shows how the proposed “ANP-QFD” technique can be deployed to understand customers’ expectation for environment management and develop tactics and measures with the aim to achieve the desirable outcome for LSPs’ environmental sustainability performance.
Practical implications
Firms that emphasize sustainability as a competitive priority will benefit by communicating sustainability efforts to customers. Therefore, “ANP-QFD” is an integrative method which helps develop LSPs’ environmental sustainability performance by enabling logistics managers incorporate the “voice” of customers for environmental concerns into their decision-making process. The study demonstrates how to develop LSPs to be greener in order to realize the requirements of green supply chains. The proposed integrated approach can also be applied in other decision-making scenarios for effective green supply chain management.
Originality/value
Various approaches that can deal with multiple and conflicting criteria have been adopted for LSP assessment in the literature. However, they fail to include the impact of business objectives and the requirements of company stakeholders (customer in this study) in the identification of performance criteria for LSP. They also did not incorporate the environmental sustainability perspective. This paper contributes to the emerging research topic of environmental sustainability in logistics and supply chains by tackling these inadequacies in the literature. The study facilitates LSPs and the supply chains they serve in achieving better economic and environmental performance, thus leading to truly sustainable outcomes.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The editor and anonymous reviewers are acknowledged for their valuable comments and suggestions. The authors also thank the global LSP for providing data and information. The study is supported by Singapore Ministry of Education AcRF project, Nanyang Technological University Ref: RG20/10.
Citation
Lam, J.S.L. and Dai, J. (2015), "Environmental sustainability of logistics service provider: an ANP-QFD approach", The International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 313-333. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-08-2013-0088
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited