Abstract:The selection andevaluation of third party logistics partner, which has been applied with manymethods and models, is always an importantissue in supply chain management. However, in the actual evaluation, manyquantitative and qualitative data can only be got from some fuzzy responds, especiallyfor the ambiguity of human language comments. And these fuzzy words, such as ‘verygood’ and ‘Genera’, are not suitable for quanitative partner evaluation whichwas concerned on multi-level indicators. This paper applies the syntheticalCloud Model to assess the ambiguity of fuzzy comments in third-party logisticspartner evaluation. It tries to provide a feasible idea for the application ofCloud model in the supply chain management field, and to provide asimple andreliableevaluation method to the logisticsmanagers.

Keywords: Thrid-Partylogistics, partner evaluation, synthetical Cloud Model

With thedevelopment of the economic globalization，moreand more companies will focus on their core business,and outsourcing logisticsoperations to third-party logistics companies. The datas from U.S. authoritiesinvestigating agency showed that when companies use third-party logistics services,theirlogistics costs will decline 11.8%, logistics assets decline 24.6%, theturnaround time of orders from 7.1 days reduce to 3.9 days^[1],Logisticsoutsourcing is the effective way to reduce costs,and optimize resources,ZhouGan^[2] pointed outhow to choose the right third-partylogistics evaluation is a key issue in logistics outsourcing.

Facing with this problem, manyscholars do research from many aspects:such as Liu Jianguang(2008); MAYingshuang(2010),Huo Dongfang and Wang Chungang(2010)， Yan Shuang(2010) but theirmethods are always AHP and Fuzzy Math.In the logistics outsourcing, it ismpossible to collect lots of quantitative data, such as Time delivery:verytimely, more timely, generally timely, less time, not timelyIs is the most commonlyand effective way used by first-line experts. Compared to the data of time rate90%,70%,50%, The language with a strong ambiguity is more directly and moreeffective reflect the knowledge of experts for timely evaluation.

 So,it is particularly importantfor us to find an effective way to solve this problem.

1. Literature Review

1.1 Third party logistics andPartner selection

  From Wikipedia, A third-partylogistics provider is a firm that provides a one stop shop service to its customersof outsourced (or "third party") logistics services for part, or allof their supply chainmanagementfunctions. After the mid-90s of the 20th century, thedomestic third-party logisticscompanies began to flourish. But compared to the foreign advanced companies, thereare many flaws in scale, transportation, service levels,the quality of personnel and many other fields^[1]. Facing so many third-party logistics companies on the market, how to choose theright one is the sloving problem to many companies.