Title: Warehouse location selection using AHP: a case of third-party logistics provider in India

Authors: Mahak Sharma; Ruchita Gupta; Swati Premchandani

Addresses: Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences (BMS), Industrial Engineering and Business Information Systems (IEBIS), University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands ' National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Vihar Lake Marg, Mumbai, Maharashtra, 400087, India ' National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Vihar Lake Marg, Mumbai, Maharashtra, 400087, India

Abstract: In developing economies with dynamic market conditions, building a new facility is one of the firm's biggest challenges. The location of the warehouse has a considerable impact on revenues, cost, and level of service. There is always a trade-off between inventory and distribution cost, and location plays a vital role in bridging the gap between the two costs. Thus, warehouse site selection is one of the critical decisions for any company. For a third-party logistics provider housing products of different companies belonging to various industries, the major challenge is selecting a location of the new warehouse to fulfil the requirements of all. Thus, the study's objective is to identify critical factors for optimal location selection for the warehouse. The paper presents a real-life problem (in the Indian context) of consolidating four warehouses of third-party logistics (3PL) providers to reduce cost. The study adopts the Delphi method, followed by the analytical hierarchy process.

Keywords: warehouse location; third-party logistics; 3PL; analytical hierarchy process; AHP; Delphi method; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSCIM.2023.131535

International Journal of Supply Chain and Inventory Management, 2023 Vol.4 No.2, pp.107 - 133

Received: 02 Mar 2020
Accepted: 09 Feb 2021
Published online: 19 Jun 2023 *