Decision-making in optimizing the contract of third party logistic

Supply chain risk management processes are among the most important activities in the value chain of any industry. The supply chain risk management process includes different activities, focused on the identification, measurement, assessment, and mitigation of the main risk sources that can affect a supply chain. The increasing complexity facing global supply chains generates the need for suppliers to collaborate in different processes in a supply chain. In this context, Third Party Logistics Providers (3PL) have been widely promoted by the phenomenon of outsourcing, on which companies increasingly rely. The growth in logistics outsourcing is mainly attributed to the benefits it brings in terms of reducing costs, improving performance, allowing companies to focus on their core businesses and building virtual enterprises through strategic alliances. In this chapter we develop a model to identify the operational risk factors of a 3PL provider.

Optimal quoting of delivery time by a third party logistics provider: The impact of shipment consolidation and temporal pricing schemes

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyse the extent of the integration between manufacturers and third party logistics (TPL) providers at present and how the integration is expected to develop in the near future. The focus is on studying what tasks are part of the cooperation, what information and communications technology (ICT) tools are used for support, and what types of services are supplied and are expected to be supplied by TPL providers in the future.Design/methodology/approachA multiple case study of seven manufacturers and TPL providers is conducted. As the basis for the study a literature review is presented focusing on supply chain management and TPL provider integration as well as operationalisation of the integration concept. A framework is chosen for developing a detailed interview guide.FindingsCooperation is primarily found in sub‐processes of three out of the eight business processes studied. Further integration in the same processes is expected, based on ICT tools and with a focus on cost. ICT competences are primarily seen as a qualifier not a differentiator. Because the future TPL industry is expected to be characterised by more standardised services, more segmented markets for the various services and more intense competition, the manufacturers do not expect increased dependence on the TPL providers.Research limitations/implicationsManagerial and behavioural components are not part of this study and their effect on integration will require further investigation.Originality/valueFrom a supply chain management perspective, the study sheds light on a rarely explored area concerning the integration between manufacturers and TPL providers and its future development.

Agricultural supply chain is in general open and dynamic attributed and negotiation is a key strategy to realize collaboration among different entities involved. However, traditional static and offline negotiation strategy may not function well, an agricultural supply chain centered on third party logistics will provide a new collaborative relationship among agricultural materials suppliers, agricultural cooperatives, farmers, agricultural products demanders and third party logistics providers. This paper proposes a novel adaptive negotiation strategy for agricultural supply chain centered on third party logistics. The negotiation strategy consists of an evaluation function in terms of integrity and risk preferences, a concession function in terms of concession preference, time and resources, and a generation function in terms of opponent’s behaviors. Afterwards, an procedure was proposed to solve the negotiation strategy. Finally, a simulation experiment was employed to verify the effectiveness of the negotiation strategy.

Since past two decades, logistics outsourcing has got immense importance in the context of supply chain management. Logistics outsourcing or outsourcing of third party logistics (3PL) comprises involvement of outside firms to execute logistics activities of a firm efficiently. As deployment of 3PL providers has gained huge momentum in recent times, appropriate selection of 3PL providers seems indeed a necessity. The present work intends to propose a decision support framework for evaluation and selection of 3PL providers in pursuit of fulfilling various business needs. A decision support framework based on dominance measure concept integrated with grey set theory has been projected herein. Result obtained thereof has been compared to that of grey-TOPSIS. A case empirical research has also been reported. The proposed dominance-based decision support system in light of grey set theory has been conceptualized and is basically a simplified version of TODIM and PROMETHEE. It explores dominance between two alternatives with respect to a particular criterion, based on which a global dominance measure is computed to facilitate deriving ranking order of candidate 3PL providers. The proposed approach delineated in this research seems straightforward, easy to execute and can exclude complex and tedious computational steps of TODIM as well as PROMETHEE.

Today's business success to a great extent depends on logistics and supply chain performance. More and more companies, especially manufacturing firms, obtain their competitive advantages through creating successful logistics outsourcing alliances to optimize value and performance. This paper put forward a conception of producer logistics service, analyzes its positive effect on manufacturing firms from the perspective of the function of producer services in industrial clusters whose core firm is manufacturing firms, furthermore, discusses logistics outsourcing between manufacturing firm as a logistics outsourcing party and third part logistics (TPL) enterprise as a logistics service provider through building cooperative game models, and finally proposes further research in the field of logistics outsourcing.

Fierce global competitiveness and heightened expectations of customers are forcing companies to forge collaborative partnerships with Third Party Logistics (3PL) service providers. Most companies cite greater flexibility, operational efficiency, improved customer service levels, enhanced supply chain performance and better focus on their core businesses as part of the advantages of engaging the services of third party logistics providers. Despite the endless advantages of third party logistics and supply chain activities, a lot of relationships either fail or are dissolved. The paper attempts to analyse the management of 3PL relationship and the impact on overall satisfaction of user organisations with the expected business performance and productivity of relationships. Research findings indicate that high-involvements in 3PL relationships, leading to collaborative partnerships, will have a positive impact on increased usage of 3PL services.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the potential use of quality function deployment (QFD) in the selection of cross-border Third Party Logistics (3PL) provider. Our approach involves extending conventional QFD with Bayesian Networks (BN) with ranked nodes and a multi-criteria decision analysis method such as Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). This way, cross-border 3PL provider selection process will incorporate voice of overseas customers and expert knowledge. Cooperating with Lovely Wholesale, a cross-border e-commerce wholesaler of women's clothing; we record the voice of customer (VOC) through a survey, develop decision criteria and compute their relative importance weights and build a correlation matrix using the House of Quality (HOQ). A causal nexus graph is formed based on the correlation analysis. We use a parameterization of BN called Ranked Nodes, which lets experts contribute their expertise in the form of natural language phrases. BN produces the decision matrix while the relative importance weights are used as weights of criteria in ranking with TOPSIS. A successful ranked list of alternatives confirms that the methodology developed in this work may aid in selecting the most appropriate cross-border 3PL provider considering the voice of customer.

Third party logistics (3PL) service providers play a growing responsibility in the management of supply chain. The global and competitive business environment of 3PLs has recognized the significance of a speedy and proficient service towards the customers in the past few decades. Particularly in warehousing, distribution, and transportation services, a number of customers anticipate 3PLs to improve lead times, fill rates, inventory levels, etc. Therefore, the 3PLs are under demands to convene a range of service necessities of customers in an active and uncertain business environment. As a consequence of the dynamic environment in which supply chain must operate, 3PLs should sustain an effective distribution system of high performance and must make a sequence of inter-related decisions over time for their distribution networks. Warehouses play an important role in sustaining the continual flow of goods and materials between the manufacturer and customers. The performance of the 3PL supply chain network can be effortlessly enhanced by a balanced allocation of customers to warehouses. In this paper, the authors develop a genetic algorithm and a particle-swarm-optimisation algorithm for solving the balanced allocation problem and the results are encouraging.

A Strategic Analysis of the Use of Third Party Logistics Providers (3PLs) in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Industry: A Systematic Review of Literature

Providing customized services to satisfy the customers from different industry background is the emerging and critical issue of the success of the third party logistics company. This paper develops a modular logistics service platform for the third party logistics providers who are facing varied customer requirements from different industries, targeting quick identification of customer requirements and generation of comprehensive and modular logistics services in fast-changing customization environments. Three dimensions of the modular logistics service platform are identified, that is service, process, and activity, which reflects customer's individual requirements. By combining different existed modular components in the service platform, this proposed philosophy can be efficiently used to develop new services for both the existed customers and the new customers.

Third Party Logistics (3PL) in Asia emerged as an important trend in logistical management and Thailand continues to develop in this service rapidly. While a great deal has been written about the dissemination of information technology (IT), few empirical investigations address the use of IT in relation to 3PLs in Thailand. In this article, the authors use an empirical study to investigate the profiles of 3PLs in Thailand and their company strategies for providing logistics service and use of IT. Survey results show that Thailand’s 3PL companies must expend more effort to strengthen basic IT and infrastructure to enhance competitiveness. IT capabilities in Thailand are increasing rapidly and its effective adoption has the potential to significantly enhance the competitiveness of small 3PLs. Still many barriers exist to the successful adoption of IT by these providers. Given the importance of such companies in supply chain management, these issues must be fully understood.

Symmetric secret-based RFID systems are widely adopted in supply chains. In such RFID systems, a reader's ability to identify a RFID tag relies on the possession of the tag's secret which is usually only known by its owner. If a symmetric secret-based RFID system is deployed in third party logistics (3PL) supply chains, all the three parties (the sender of the goods, the receiver of the goods and the 3PL provider) should have a copy of those tags' secrets to access the tags. In case the three parties in 3PL supply chain are not all honest, sharing the secrets among the three parties will cause security and privacy problems. To solve these problems, we firstly formalize the security and privacy requirements of RFID system for 3PL supply considering the existence of the internal adversaries as well as the external adversaries. Then we propose two different protocols which satisfy the requirements, one is based on aggregate massage authentication codes, the other is based on aggregate signature scheme. Based on the comparisons of the two protocols on performance and usability, we get the conclusion that overall the aggregate MAC-based solution is more applicable in 3PL supply chains.

Information and communication technology (ICT) is widely regarded as a key integration enabler in contemporary supply chain configurations. Furthermore, recent years have seen the vertical disintegration of supply chains as increasing numbers of manufacturers and retailers outsource significant parts of their supply chain functionality. In this environment, third party logistics (3PLs) providers – the majority of which are small companies – play a pivotal role. This raises important questions about the usage of ICT in this sector. However, there is a paucity of research in the field of small 3PLs with little empirical investigation into the usage of ICT by such firms. This article presents the results of a survey on ICT systems usage in a sample of small Italian 3PLs. The results provide a technological profile of the surveyed companies as well as an analysis of the role of ICT in customising services and of the factors influencing technology adoption.

Carrier-mode logistics optimization of inbound supply chains for electronics manufacturing