Collaborative logistics management and the role of third-party service providers

Collaborative logistics management and the role of third-party service providers Gunnar Stefansson Division of Logistics and Transportation,Chalmers University of Technology,Go

¨teborg,Sweden Abstract

Purpose –This paper aims to derive and verify a collaborative framework that specifies the role of different parties in contemporary logistics setups.

Design/methodology/approach –To prepare this paper,a study of the logistics literature has been conducted together with several case studies.The empirical evidence has been collected in Europe as well as in the USA.Different aspects of collaboration between organizations in logistics setups have been studied where the services and the activities have been analyzed to understand the characteristics of the role of third-party service providers.

Findings –The results from the work cluster the different third-party service providers in three different groups:carriers,logistics service providers (LSPs)and logistics service intermediaries (LSIs).All of these parties have different roles and provide various services in outsourced logistics setups.A collaborative logistics management (CLM)model has been derived that embraces the role of the different parties,the information and material flows between them,the interface attributes and the information systems architecture.In this paper,a focus is mainly on the part of the model that reveals the role of the third-party service providers.

Practical implications –The practical implications of the work has its foundation in that activities,performed by two parties,can be adapted to each other so that their combined efficiency is improved.The CLM model can be applied when designing and negotiating third-party services for specific logistics assignments.

Originality/value –The paper offers a model of logistics collaboration between the different parties in contemporary,outsourced logistics setups.

Keywords Transportation,Distribution,Third-party vendors,Distribution management

Paper type Research paper

Introduction The theme of this paper is collaboration in logistics and the role of third-party service providers typically participating in logistics setups.The term is used as a synonym throughout this paper for carriers,warehouse operators,third-party logistics service providers (LSPs),and any other type of logistics service intermediates (LSIs)such as forwarders or information processing service providers.Much has been written about relationships in logistics,primarily between the shipper and the receiver of the goods,not least within the marketing research area as well as within the logistics research area (Kraljic,1983;Christy and Grout,1994;Olsen and Ellram,1997;Bagchi and Virum,1998;Bensaou,1999;Gadde et al.,2003).However,the relations in the common triad setup,between the shipper and the carrier and between the receiver and the carrier,have rarely been covered (Gentry,1996;

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

/0960-0035.htm

IJPDLM

36,2

76

Received June 2005

Revised September 2005

Accepted September 2005International Journal of Physical

Distribution &Logistics Management

Vol.36No.2,2006

pp.76-92

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0960-0035

DOI 10.1108/09600030610656413