Integrating Industry 4.0 and circular economy principles in emergency third-party logistics service provider selection: a new multi-criteria decision-making approach

Purpose The purpose of this study is to integrate Industry 4.0 technologies, circular economy principles and sustainability practices to evaluate emergency third-party logistics service providers (E3PLSPs) using an approach based on multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. Design/methodology/approach This paper develops a two-stage hybrid approach based on MCDM methods. In the first stage, evaluation criteria and sub-criteria are identified, and their independent weights are calculated using the fuzzy stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) method. In the second stage, the weighted influence non-linear gauge system (WINGS) technique is used to rank E3PLSPs by considering the interdependencies among the criteria. Findings The proposed approach is validated through its implementation in a disaster management organization in Iran using the knowledge of five experts of this organization. For this purpose, the performance of five E3PLSPs is evaluated using 27 sub-criteria. The results denote that “delivery/service performance,” “cost,” “safe and healthy work environment,” “policies related to human resources,” “technological capabilities” and “financial capability” are six important sub-criteria in the problem under study. The findings of the comparative analysis confirm that considering the dependency among criteria has a significant effect on the final weights of criteria and sub-criteria, and it affects the ranking of E3PLSPs. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper, for the first time, applies economic, social, Industry 4.0 and circular criteria to evaluate E3PLSPs. In addition, a novel MCDM approach consisting of fuzzy SWARA and WINGS methods is used for this purpose.