Multi-attribute Inter-enterprise Exchange of Logistics Services

The exchange of inter-enterprise and intra-enterprise logistics services in the transport logistics sector has become more important. Nevertheless, only a few approaches are able to take into consideration the synergy effects between the customer orders in the case of the outsourcing process and the preferences of customers. In this article, an approach is introduced which offers a solution based on combinatorial auctions and multi-attribute bid formation, considers tradeoffs between an optimum allocation of customer orders and a maximum fulfillment of customer preferences in accordance with the strategy of the enterprise, and provides a customer satisfaction index in order to optimize a strategy of logistics service providers in terms of customer loyalty. The simulation results show that the consideration of customer preferences has a significant influence on savings, and that it is also possible to increase the number of fulfilled customer preferences without a significant reduction of savings.