How 3PLs are Decreasing Workers Standards of Living

December 21, 2011

Background When I first began this blog, I focused on the illusive 4PL concept. The 4PL practice is based upon technology, creating technology platforms which improve the coordination of asset oriented logistics providers. I am still asked who are 4PL companies. I answer “no one.” There is no one who meets the actual criteria of [...]

Read the full article →

Why Service Parts Are Perfect for 4PL

April 22, 2010

Why 4PL? A fourth party logistics providers is a company that holds no physical logistics assets, but coordinates the supply chain though its access to monitoring data and IT. You can read more about this intermediary structure here. http://www.scmfocus.com/fourthpartylogistics/2009/05/23/fourth-party-logistics-providers/ 4PLs apply for both finished goods and service parts, however, in this post we will focus [...]

Read the full article →

7PL is a Deliberately False Concept

February 4, 2010

What is 7PL? 7PL is a concept that combines the 3PLs with 4PLs to make what they refer to as 7PLs. The advantages of this concept are the following: One service provider can now provide a client with both 3PL and 4PL services with a complete 7PL solution to clients and can undertake turnkey projects [...]

Read the full article →

A Good Reason Why SAP SCM Cannot Penetrate 3PLs

August 1, 2009

Problem Breaking In SAP SCM has very few 3PLs as customers. Why is this? SAP SCM offers a modules which address: Transportation Planning and Vehicle Scheduling (TP/VS) Event Management (EM) Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) One reason 3PLs do not select SCM no doubt has to do with its cost (both implementation and maintenance as well [...]

Read the full article →

Is the Idea of Consulting Based 4PLs Believable?

July 25, 2009

Book on 4PL We have recently been reading Fourth Party Logistics: The Future of Fourth Party Logistics: The Future of Supply Chain Outsourcing? by Serafettin Kutlu. Serafettin sets up the scenario with the following: 1994 Andersen Consulting survey of 250 organizations in the UR round that two-thirds of respondents actually felt that their initial expectations [...]

Read the full article →

Tendering and Freight Marketplaces

June 21, 2009

What Happened to the Technology Initiated Freight Revolution? Lets take a walk down memory lane back to 1998-1999. i2 Technologies was the number one supply chain vendor and their management had seen fit to come out with a new concept based upon information sharing and the web called TradeMatrix. To explain all of what TradeMatrix [...]

Read the full article →

SAP Design for 3PL and 4PL

June 20, 2009

SAP SCM The SAP SCM suite has a number of modules that provide functionality for advanced planning and execution. This suite has many installations in finished goods manufacturers. SAP has made a number of enhancements in the past several years which address the transportation, warehousing and supply chain monitoring areas of the suite that have [...]

Read the full article →

Forward Stocking Location Definition

June 15, 2009

Finding the Actual Definition We recently had a discussion which involved the topic of a forward stocking location. We decided to look up this term and did not find very much about it. None of the major sites such as Wikipedia have anything more than a vague one sentence definition of it. We found no [...]

Read the full article →

Is UPS Actually A 4PL?

June 14, 2009

Is It True? We came upon the UPS website and found a several web pages where UPS presents its 4PL services. So we have to ask the question: Is UPS a 4PL? Well clearly, they have assets, which by definition would make them a 3PL. However, they may offer some pure information services for supply [...]

Read the full article →

Simple Logistics Outsourcing Not The Answer

June 10, 2009

Thinking originally or differently is very difficult for people who work in supply chain. This may have something to do with the doctrinal orientation of the education system combined with the severe hierarchy found in so many companies. Therefore, supply chain has a lot of technology, but few original ideas, or original thinkers. There is [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries