Causal Relationship Study among Total Quality Management Criteria for Logistics Service Provider Business Excellence

Logistics Service Providers; LSPs become important in logistics and supply chain management nowadays due to the outsourcing of logistics activities. The performance of logistics service providers, hence, affect logistics and supply chain management of LSP users. In order to ensure the performance, Business Excellence Models are employed. The ELMA Award are developed from MBNQA principle with the believe that the award can ensure the business excellence in LSPs. The study of causal relationship among criteria is required so that the model can be used for self-assessment in LSP. This research aims to study the causal relationships among the criteria of business excellence for LSPs employing DEMATEL methodology. The DEMATEL questionnaires are completed by the in-depth interview with 11 industry experts from various types of LSPs. The result reveals the essential causal relationship among the criteria of business excellence for LSPs. These relationships can be used in creating improvement initiative for LSPs. The result from DEMATEL also shows that Leadership, Planning, and Customer and Market focuses, are the most important criteria towards business excellence for LSPs. In addition, Innovation in products and services should be included for LSPs business excellence.