Search results

Third-party logistics (3PL) plays a main role in supply chain management and, as a result, has experienced remarkable growth. The demand for 3PL providers has become a main approach for companies to offer better customer service, reduce costs, and gain competitive advantage. This paper identifies important criteria for 3PL provider selection and evaluation, and the purpose of this paper is to select 3PL providers from the viewpoint of firms which were already outsourcing their logistics services.

This study utilized the grey decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method to develop 3PL provider selection criteria. Because human judgments are vague and complicated to depict by accurate numerical values, the grey system theory is used to handle this problem.

The findings revealed the structure and interrelationships between criteria and identified the main criteria for 3PL provider selection. The most important criteria for 3PL provider selection are on time delivery performance, technological capability, financial stability, human resource policies, service quality, and customer service, respectively.

The paper’s results help managers of automotive industries, particularly in developing countries, to outsource logistics activities to 3PL providers effectively and to create a significant competitive advantage.

The main contributions of this paper are twofold. First, this paper proposes an integrated grey DEMATEL method to consider interdependent relationships among the 3PL provider selection criteria. Second, this study is one of the first studies to consider 3PL provider selection in a developing country like Iran.

The purpose of this research is to first explore various third party logistic service provider supply chain enablers. Thereafter the interrelationship amongst the various supply chain enablers has been studied using ISM Methodology. Despite the complex relationships third party logistic service providers (3PLs) share with their clients or firms, they often attract a demand owing to the flexibility and competitive edge they provide to their client firms in adapting to the rapidly changing market conditions, focusing on their core competencies and developing long-term growth strategies for them. Choosing and evaluating the right third-party logistic service provider is an important responsibility for logistic managers. This largely depends on selecting appropriate 3PLs supply chain enablers that assess the 3PLs on different fronts.

This paper presents an ISM approach for studying the interrelationships between various 3PLs enablers and accordingly constructing a hierarchical structure of them.

The results suggest that delivery, service reliability and risk and uncertainty factors have the highest importance.

Selection of the 3PLs is a critical issue when they are required to be selected by the company at the global level. This often requires doing a comparative study for both domestic as well as global service providers. Choosing appropriate supply chain enablers as the basis for selection of 3PLs therefore will serve as a research topic to be further explored both by researchers as well as company managers. Further studying the inter-relationships amongst various supply chain enablers will provide basis to managers to justify their choice.

The novelty of the research lies in the application of methodology to the case of third-party logistic service provider selection

The concept of third-party logistics service provider (3PLSP) has been considered as an essential organizational philosophy to achieve profits. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and examine the contextual relationship among the critical success factors (CSF) of 3PLSPs practices in the cement manufacturing industry.

In this paper, the total 20 critical selection criteria with nine processes for the 3PLSPs, of an Indian cement manufacturing industry have been identified through an exhaustive literature review and opinions of the experts i.e. academics and industries. Interpretive ranking process (IRP) methodology has been presented to find out the rankings of the individual criteria and the mutual influence in the selection process.

The proposed model establishes the dominance of relationship among identified criteria, which plays a vital role in the 3PLSPs selection process which are experience in similar product, quality of management, information technology capacity, flexibility in operation and delivery, compatibility with the users.

An empirical research approach has not been used to collect primary data to rank different criteria for effective 3PLSPs implementation in the Industry. In this paper, an example of Indian cement industry is presented to show the real world applicability of the proposed model.

This model would help a decision maker to decide the issues related to a selection of 3PLSPs. The third party service provider comprises the use of external companies who controls and delivers logistic activities. The paper discusses very practical issues in an analytical manner, using the case base method.

The purpose of this study was to identify the key third-party logistics (3PL) selection criteria for the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing industry in Taiwan. The IC manufacturing industry seeks global sourcing, and is facing increasing pressure due to fierce market competition. More than a cost reduction strategy, 3PL is a strategic tool for IC manufacturers to gain a competitive advantage in a global supply chain complex.

The triangulation method that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches was used in the study. The qualitative approach of focus group discussions was adopted to establish the decision framework, and the quantitative approach of the analytic hierarchy process was used to explore the relative importance of the 3PL selection criteria. Finally, an in-depth proof-by-example interview was undertaken to provide an insightful interpretation of the research results.

The research shows that performance is the most important criterion group, followed by cost, service, quality assurance, intangible and information technology. At the detailed sub-criteria level, document accuracy, problem-solving capability, continuous cost reduction, value-added services and associated cost control capability are the top five criteria.

This study focused on the IC manufacturing sector in Taiwan. Multi-country and multi-industry studies are recommended to help further validate and generalise the research findings.

Due to its application of triangulation, this study is a pioneering work on the 3PL selection criteria in a high-tech manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the value of this research is that it enhances the body of knowledge of 3PL selection by identifying certain emerging selection criteria, it could serve as a guideline for IC manufacturers in planning logistics outsourcing actions and it could significantly contribute to the efforts of 3PL providers in evaluating whether they comply with customer needs and adhere to core competency development.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review and contributes to academic understanding and practitioner needs of third party logistics (3PL) which were developed over the past decade.

Through a structured selection search of the entire English-language academic literature, after final refinement, the authors identified 95 relevant studies in this context. A succinct classification of literature has been performed to collate the entire literature encompassing viewpoints of both academicians and practitioners.

The key finding of this review suggests the opportunities exist in the understanding of the “optimization capabilities” of a 3PL provider. The authors found that when on the one side, constructs such as “supply chain vision”, “creativity”, “impact of geographical reach of services on the selection criteria” need more attention; on the other hand, operational dimensions of 3PL such as packaging ability, repair service, procedural compliance, conflict resolution, role of HR policies and mitigation of external risks provides a chance for future researchers to delve deeper into these domains. Furthermore, the authors also presented a comprehensive research gap framework highlighting potential research topics to be explored in near future.

The paper captures peer-reviewed literature from the past decade and has been selected from the Web of Science database only.

The paper identifies different research gaps, namely, conceptual, contextual and methodological, to understand and develop opportunities for future research in the domain of 3PL. The paper makes a careful attempt by linking the synthesis of this literature review to previous literature reviews to establish the knowledge continuum of third party logistics.

The purpose of this paper is to efficiently assist the decision makers in evaluating and selecting the most appropriate third-party logistics (3PL) provider from environmental sustainability perspective using a two-phase model based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) and analytic network process (ANP).

The study uses an integrated approach of DEA and ANP as an evaluation and selection methodology to select an efficient and requisite 3PL. The integrated model is a sound technique for 3PL evaluation and selection. DEA effectively screens the maximally efficient 3PLs, whereas ANP easily performs the cumbersome process of weighting diverse criteria and ranks various alternatives according to their performance on the basis of these criteria. This study lists the prominent evaluation and selection criteria taking into consideration the environmental sustainability. Finally, a real-life industrial application is presented to demonstrate the proposed method.

The current research work is devoted to the emerging research topic of environmental sustainability in logistics industry and supply chain management. The results of study indicate that eco-efficient transportation and 3PLs lead better transportation planning, better inventory and warehouse management, lower inventory cost and sustainable supply chain operations. Also, the applied approach enables the decision makers to better understand the complex relationships of the relevant criteria in the decision-making process.

This study does not investigate the relationships between environmental performances and differentiation advantage from the perspective of 3PLs. Also, sensitivity analysis is not performed.

The developed integrated model enables decision analysts to better understand the complete evaluation process of 3PL evaluation and selection considering environmental sustainability perspective. Furthermore, the developed approach provides a more flexible, simple, accurate, effective, and systematic decision support tool for 3PL evaluation and selection.

The current study is first of its kind to use the integrated approach in evaluation and selection of 3PLs from environmental sustainability perspective considering the inter-dependencies among the evaluation and selection criteria.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and model the evaluation criteria for the selection of third-party logistics service provider (3PLSP) by an interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach in the pharmaceutical sector.

Delphi technique was used for identifying the most significant criteria, and the ISM method was employed for developing the interrelationship among the criteria. Also, the critical criteria for having high influential power were identified by using the Matrice d’Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement analysis.

The most significant factors, namely, capability of robust supply network/distribution network, quality certification and health safety, service quality and environmental quality certifications, were found to have a high driving power, and these factors demand the maximum attention of the decision makers.

As the ISM approach is a qualitative tool, the expert opinions were used for developing the structural model, and the judgments of the experts could be biased influencing the reliability of the model. The developed hierarchical concept is proposed to help the executives, decision and policy makers in formulating the strategies and the evaluation of sustainable 3PLSP.

It is an original research highlighting the association between the sustainable 3PLSP evaluation criteria by employing ISM tool in the pharmaceutical industry. This paper will guide the managers in understanding the importance of the evaluation criteria for the efficient selection of 3PLSP.

Developing strategic relationships with third-party logistics (3PL) providers has long been one of the key challenges in automotive supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach for evaluation and indexing 3PL providers using the Kano model.

The statistical population used in this research comprises managers from the Iranian automotive industry. The Kano evaluation approach is used to analyze the data collected and to classify the criteria used in selection of the preferred 3PL providers.

The results suggest that the proposed framework, based on the Kano classification, can be a powerful tool for the automotive industry in evaluating 3PL providers. Moreover, the analyses indicate that 3PL providers need to improve their service offering in aspects that are to be found in the Kano model’s requirements, namely, must-be, one-dimensional and attractive.

This study contributes to the supply chain management literature by being the first to classify selection indices of 3PL providers in the automotive industry using the Kano model.

An ever-increasing number of companies outsource logistics activities to third-party logistics (3PL) providers to beat the competition. From the buyer's (shippers') perspective, selecting the right 3PL provider is crucial, and from the 3PL provider's perspective, it is imperative to be attractive and to retain clients. To this aim, a potential lever can be physical assets, such as warehouses, which the literature has traditionally neglected. The objective is to benchmark the importance of warehouses for 3PL providers to attract/retain clients and for shippers to select the right 3PL provider.

The authors performed an empirical investigation through interviews on dyads (3PL providers/shippers) and utilized the Best-Worst Method (BWM) to rank the criteria used in the 3PL buying process and allow the warehouse's role to emerge.

Results show that the 3PL buying process consists of four phases and three evaluation steps. The selection criteria are classified into three groups: order qualifiers, order winners and retention factors. The warehouse has different levels of importance throughout the process. It appears that it can indirectly enhance the attractiveness and retention capability of 3PL providers through other selection criteria.

By combining the resource-based view and the customer value theory, this research extends the theory on logistics outsourcing by studying the phases of the 3PL buying process and scrutinizing the criteria used in different evaluation steps. The research adds a double perspective of analysis (3PL providers and shippers), which is missing in the literature, and focuses on the importance of warehouses.

This study examines the outsourcing criteria prevalent in the Hotel industry of Pakistan. In doing so, the study investigates the role of trust in the association between relationship marketing dimensions—communication, opportunistic behavior, reputation, satisfactory prior outcomes and specific investment—and third-party logistics provider’s (3PL) selection.

Using a close-ended questionnaire, data were collected from 97 hotels of various categories operating in Pakistan and involved in 3PL outsourcing. Partial Least Square–Structural Equation Modeling was employed to estimate the modeled relationships.

With a high predictive relevance of the model, communication, satisfactory prior outcome and reputation were found to have a significant effect on the trust, whereas the results showed a significant mediating role of trust in the association between communication, reputation and 3PL provider’s selection.

The study uses static data from selected firms and cannot be used to analyze behavior over a period of time. Hence, a generalization of results should be made carefully.

Findings imply that for fully capitalizing on the benefits by virtue of their prospective relationship, the managers must streamline their processes and activities according to path directions that endorse a higher degree of trust in their service providers and establish an effective system of communications interconnecting their mutual goals and objectives.

The outcome of the research study illustrated the perceptions of the local businesses with regards to the 3PL service provider(s) selection via the establishment of trust.