Cost and schedule management are important issues in an information technology outsourcing project. Generally, a client does not know much about market quotation and ability of vendors. Thus, an efficient approach should select a suitable vendor for the project with balanced cost and schedule. In this study, an improved standard English auction (ISEA) is designed, in which the multi-attribute situation is considered, and multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) is introduced. A new auction protocol and a utility increment function are proposed, respectively. Finally, numerical examples are designed to demonstrate the auction process and its operation. Some insights are found: The ISEA is competent to describe the cost and schedule management process in an auction approach. The optimal incremental utility for client and vendor are found, and the proposed auction protocol is a mechanism for the client and vendor to obtain win–win results. The completely consistent results can be obtained from different size cases, which indicates that the validity of the designed auction mechanism and the effect of the utility increase function on the negotiation results.

The third party logistics (3PL) suppliers selection is a key issue in sustainable operation of fourth party logistics (4PL). A two-stage auction mechanism is designed for the selection of 3PL suppliers. Different from previous studies, the paper considers risk preference of 4PL integrators during the auction and uses the prospect theory to establish the auction scoring function of 4PL integrators. First, a first score sealed auction (FSSA) mechanism is used to solve the selection problem. However, the results show that FSSA is not an ideal method. Hence, the English auction (EA) mechanism is combined with the FSSA mechanism to form a two-stage auction. The FSSA is taken as the first stage auction, and the EA is taken as the second stage auction, and the two-stage auction mechanism is constructed. The two-stage auction can improve the utility of the 4PL integrator and the auction efficiency. In addition, for the degree of disclosure of attribute weights in the scoring function, two states, complete information and incomplete information is designed. In case analysis, the validity of the designed two-stage auction mechanism is verified. The 4PL integrator can obtain higher utility under the risk-neutral auction than the risk-averse auction. The complete information auction does not make the 4PL integrator obtain higher utility than the incomplete information auction.