Due to intricacies, considerable risks are involved in product recovery operations, therefore core competency and experience are prerequisite for successful implementation of Reverse Logistics (RL).To overcome this, organizations are outsourcing the recovery operations and are opting for Third Party Recovery Facilitators (3PRF) to obtain prominent results. This paper contributes by proposing a decision model to address risks associated with product recovery and suggesting criteria for suitable 3PRF selection. The study also introduces a novel approach, combining Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and ELECTRE III methodologies to tackle this problem of 3PRF selection to improve decisions. ELECTRE III is a more reliable and pragmatic method, as it considers imprecision present in expert opinions and ensures that an extremely low score on a criterion cannot be compensated by good scores on other criteria. Subsequently, ISM methodology is used for identifying relationships among various criteria to determine the most significant ones. ELECTRE III method is then applied to select the most appropriate 3PRF based on the most significant criteria. The application of this novel approach can reduce risk involved and time during the process of recovery facilitator selection. Additionally, case study has been conducted to show the practical implementation of ELECTRE III methodology in selection process.
