This paper examines the process of employing four kinds of information systems in fourth-party logistics. The paper mainly tries to answer research questions: what is fourth-party logistics and information systems; what are benefits and barriers for using four kinds of information systems (RFID, WMS, EDI, Electronic marketplace) with the help of fourth-party logistics; what are unique benefits and barriers for fourth-party logistics to employ the four kinds of information systems and how to overcome the difficulties. To answer the research question, qualitative case study approach was employed and two case companies were chosen. Information in literature review was collected from secondary data for example scientific paper. Information in findings was collected from interviews of people in charge of the project and internal reports.   Definitions of fourth-party logistics and information system were reviewed in literature review. The differences between fourth-party logistics and third-party logistics were presented as well. In addition, categorization of various kinds of advanced information systems was also listed.   Benefits and barriers organized from literature and case studies were gathered and compared in discussion. Two significant benefits were identified: opportunities to do businesses with leading companies and improved efficiency. Two main barriers are confusion of the concept of fourth-party logistics and terminology of information system and financial justification. There are different opinions between the two case companies, literature review and empirical data, and between different literature. The paper concluded that there are many benefits and barriers for employing the four kinds of information systems in fourth-party logistics, and the future development of it is promising.

This thesis focuses on third party logistics providers in Sweden and their service offerings. The author examines, evaluate and discuss the range of third party logistics services provided by third party logistics companies in Sweden. Furthermore, the author categorized the third party logistics providers using some of proposed frameworks and theories for differentiating third party logistics providers from previous researchers. This was done to determine the relevant categories that the third party logistics providers in Sweden belongs to. Moreover, the author made a comparison of the competence of third party logistics providers in terms of the number of services they offer in Sweden. The author used the qualitative research approach as the thesis is more exploratory in nature. Basically, exploratory research is conducted to obtain greater understanding of a concept or to help clarify ambiguous problem. The author interview four (4) third party logistics providers in Sweden and other information such as the provider’s website information and annual reports was used in the analysis. It is interesting to note that, relationship between third party logistics providers and their customer is a major factor when classifying providers into different category. Some of the theories proposed by previous researcher on the classification of third party logistics provider have become obsolete due to the fact that the relationship between the third party logistics providers and their customers has evolve over the years from formal cooperation to strategic alliance and joint ownership. Some of the companies are less competent than others in terms of the services they offer in each of the third party logistics service categories. This does not necessarily make them weaker because the services they offer in each of the categories are being driven by the company’s business strategy to stay competitive in the third party logistics industry. Furthermore, although size and global status give some competitive advantages, adopting different strategies such as creating a niche market in a particular service or a particular industry will provide major competitive advantages to third party logistics providers.

With the development of logistics market, the third party logistics can no longer solve all the problems in supply chain management, the appearance of fourth party logistics is a breakthrough solution to modern supply chain challenge. Since China has become the manufacturing center of the world, it attracts more attentions to its own logistics market. But at the same time, there are few studies on Chinese fourth party logistics. This purpose of the study is to research a fourth party logistics service provider in China, including the barriers and the recommendations to promote its development. The fourth party logistics assembles the resources, capabilities, and technologies of its own company and other companies to design, build and run comprehensive supply chain solutions (Foster 1999). The research objectives of the study are 1. Identify what is the smart logistics and the factors comprised smart logistics network in general. 2. Describe the Rookie plan and analysis its property and prospect. And 3. Classify the impact of smart logistics on customer satisfaction or requests, and formulate recommendations on how to improve the performance of Rookie plan. Due to such aims, this research pursues a hybrid method which consists both of survey and case study about the ‘Rookie Plan’. Hereby, not only the secondary data for theoretical framework establishment and information gathering of the case project is engaged, but also the primary data through questionnaire to the sellers on the ecommerce platform named ‘Taobao’. For enhancing the reliability and validity of the survey, the overall process is conducted base on a four step guideline, as well as four-phase data analysis method for analyzing the information. What is more, the overall analysis part is led by PEST model. The integration of all methods above confirm the reliability and validity of the research process. The results of survey show that there is a necessary to bring smart logistics into e-commerce, and there is a huge potential for the development of fourth party logistics.  This study has demonstrated that Rookie Plan, the new type of logistics service provider in China has obtained a significant achievement and bring the customers huge benefits, but it also faced some risks including it cannot guarantee all aspects of this plan can have well function, and the underdevelopment logistics infrastructure also hinder its development. As the reason of achieving a better development of Rookie plan and shining a light for other 4PL companies in China, the recommendations for Rookie Plan are strengthen the planning and construction of logistics infrastructure, promote the development of third party logistics service provider, and accelerate the integration of e-commerce and modern logistics industry.

This paper aims to analyze the potential future of the 4PL concept based on expert opinions with special regard to the influence of digitalization coming with a disruptive trans-formation of supply chains. Service arrangements, provider capabilities and benefits resulting from a 4PL partnership are compared in current and future configurations. The research follows an explorative mixed methods approach with semi structured interviews followed by an expert panel. This builds a basis for an online survey questionnaire to inquire on important future aspects for the 4PL concept by a sample of respondents from multinational companies. Our results show a clear trend away from simply organizing transportation and logistics activities towards the provision of an IT platform as well as further value-added service activities such as planning, analytics and monitoring. Along with this, IT capabilities appear to be an important differentiator for 4PL providers in the future. Moreover, relationships between 4PL providers and their clients become closer and more strategic, which leads to a customer valuing not only direct cost reductions but rather improvements resulting from optimized operations through superior analysis and planning functions.

Logistics has been an important part of every economy and every business entity. The worldwide trend in globalization has led to many companies outsourcing their logistics function to Third-Party Logistics (3PL) companies, so as to focus on their core competencies. This paper attempts to broadly identify and categorize the challenges faced by 3PL companies and discover potential gaps for future research. Some of the challenges will be related with the experience and information collected from interviews with two 3PL companies. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

Since the business environment of today is characterized to be dynamic and service-driven, corporations are looking for solutions how to cut costs and still keep their competitive advantage in the market, and also how to decrease lead-time and flexibility. In this environment are 3PL-providers operating with an incentive to always please the customer. This study will investigate a 3PL-provider´s information sharing with its customer and how value can be extracted from this type of sharing. The purpose of this thesis is to understand and investigate the value of information sharing between the 3PL-provider and its customer. Two research questions have been dictated; R1: How do the respondents at the 3PL-provider perceive the relationship with their customer? R2: How are information requirements met? For the frame of reference have theories in the area of third-party logistics, information, relation, and value been studied. The carrying out of the study has been performed with a bounded ethnography approach since this study has essences from both the scientific and ethnographic approaches. The research reasoning is mainly inductive but with deductive elements. The research strategy is of qualitative character, where the data collection has been carried out through interviews/discussions within multiple case studies. There were several interviews launched within the target 3PL-relationships. The analysis of the empirical findings has been done through the existing theories in the frame of reference. The investigation showed that improvements of the information requirements and utilization of the communication methods improves the quality of the information sharing, and the conclusion drawn is that the information requirements and communication methods are big contributors for the information sharing as a whole. Since the information sharing is considered a big contributor to the customer value one can use the customer value as reference for how to value the information sharing. A main conclusion is therefore that the value of information sharing is dependent on its contribution for the customer value.

Die vorliegende Arbeit zur Logistik,verstanden als eine anwendungsorientierte Wissenschaftsdisziplin, verfolgt eine wissenschaftliche sowie praxisorientierte Zielsetzung. Als übergeordnetes Ziel ist die Feststellung des Status quo und der Entwicklungsperspektiven des 4PL-Ansatzes anzuführen. Durch die Verwendung von etablierten Forschungsmethoden wird die wissenschaftliche Rigorosität sichergestellt. Zur Erfüllung der praxisorientierten Zielsetzung wurden Fallstudien und Experteninterviews im Rahmen des Forschungsprozesses verwendet, um zum einen das Wissen aus der Praxis einzubinden und zum anderen eine Relevanz für die Praxis sicherzustellen. Für eine konsistente Praxis-Orientierung wurde die Branche der landwirtschaftlichen Schüttgutlogistik als exemplarisches Anwendungsfeld zur Untersuchung des 4PL-Ansatzes gewählt. Die Schüttgutlogistik beschreibt das Bindeglied zwischen der Landwirtschaft, dem Handel und der Ernährungsindustrie und somit einen Teil eines Netzwerkes. Das Transportvolumen betrug im Jahr 2010 ca. 3,5 Mrd. t, wobei 76 % (2,7 Mrd. t) auf den Straßenverkehr entfielen (Bundesministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz 2010). In Anlehnung an die Trends der Logistik konnten gefestigte und klassische Strukturen vorgefunden werden, weshalb der 4PL-Ansatz als wahre Innovation untersucht werden konnte. Dies ist dadurch begründet, dass die Branche über genossenschaftliche Strukturen verfügt und neue technologische Trends eher zurückhaltend verfolgt. Dennoch sind die logistischen Herausforderungen wie die Reduzierung von Leerkilometern, die Optimierung der Frachtraumkapazitäten sowie die CO2-Reduzierung laut den befragten Akteuren der Branche von hoher Bedeutung (Müller 2010). Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurden daher Methoden, Modelle, Applikationen und Vorgehensweisen entwickelt, welche zur Beantwortung der folgenden übergeordneten Forschungsfragen herangezogen werden: 1. Was ist der Status quo des 4PL-Ansatzes sowie das Anforderungsprofil der landwirtschaftlichen Schüttgutlogistik an den 4PL? 2. Was sind die wichtigsten Diffusionsfaktoren des 4PL-Ansatzes in der deutschen landwirtschaftlichen Schüttgutlogistik? 3. Was sind die Potenziale innerhalb einer Branche durch Einführung eines 4PL? 4. Wie können eine Implementierung sowie die organisatorische Einordnung des 4PL-Ansatzes für eine Branche erfolgen? 5. Welche Trends der Zukunft zeigen Parallelen zum 4PL-Ansatz auf? Die vorliegende kumulative Dissertation zeigt Potenziale für die Branche auf und trägt zum Verständnis einer zukünftigen Entwicklung des 4PL-Ansatzes bei. Zur Zielerreichung wird ein Mixed-Methods-Ansatz verfolgt.

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Third party logistics (TPL), the procurement of an integrated set of logistics services in a long-term relationship between a shipper (goods owner) and a service provider, is today a viable option for how companies carry out their logistics activities. Very little has been written on implementation or change issues in a TPL setting; these issues are identified as important, but not elaborated. There is however reason to believe that implementation of TPL arrangements, or rather establishment thereof, involves a complex change process involving substantial change for a wide range of actors in both the shipper’s and the provider’s organisation. When comparing literature that deals with the TPL establishment process with a stream of research that is concerned with logistics change, it comes to light that there is a discrepancy between the theoretical and methodological foundations of the former works, and what is written in these pieces regarding the process. It is concluded that recommendations for how to manage the establishment process are given without being founded in a theory of process, or research designs capable of studying process. The theoretical underpinnings of TPL literature are founded in a view of change as a matter of conducting rational analysis and conceiving the strategically wisest decisions for the logistics system as a whole. Implementation is viewed as an unproblematic exercise of issuing directives to affected actors, asserting that all actors are rational, therefore rationally conceived decisions will be accepted and implemented accordingly. Therefore the overarching purpose of this research is: To explore the change process of third party logistics establishment To fulfil this purpose the two streams of research mentioned above are combined. A meta-model of process consisting of the three interrelated dimensions content, context, and process forms the starting point for the study of process, but this is not sufficient for a study of change; a theory of change which is capable of capturing the mechanisms of the change process as it unfolds is also needed. Therefore the theory of change of the second stream of research mentioned above is adopted. The theory of change encompasses three models of change, which are archetypical representations of the mechanisms underlying change processes according to different assumptions of what change is and how change comes about. These models are denoted the linear, the processual, and the circular. One important aspect of this theory of change is that the approach to change should be aligned with the extent oflearning requirements on the actors who are affected by or involved in the change. An actors perspective is therefore called for, and adopted in this thesis. This thesis is the first step of a wider research effort concerned with studying the process of establishing TPL. Therefore, of the three dimensions of change, the contentdimension is excluded from study in this thesis. Governed by the meta-model of process, two research objectives are formulated: To explore the context within which the TPL establishment process unfolds and describe the contextual dependence of this process &amp; To describe the change process of TPL establishment in terms of the linear, processual, and circular models of change The empirical investigation applied is a single-case retrospective study, in which the case is the establishment process between a Swedish company and an international TPL service provider. A total of fifteen actors have been interviewed; ten on the shipper side of the dyad, five on the provider side. Although the TPL establishment process is an interorganisational process, this thesis focuses on the intraorganisational process of the shipper, why the empirical material from the other side of the dyad is not used in this thesis, The interorganisational aspect, as well as the intraorganisational side within the provider’s organisation are nevertheless important, and will be included in future research. The interviews were carried out in an unstructured manner, in which the interviewees were asked to retell the story from their own perspectives. Actors from varying positions, who were involved in the process, are included in the study; in the total sample all groups who were most affected or involved are represented. The interviews rendered ten stories of the studied process. These stories were then analysed by means of a pattern-matching logic, in order to seek out the important contextual dependencies of the process, and to explore the mechanisms of the change process, as it evolved in context. After having conducted this first step of the ongoing research effort, four main conclusions can be drawn: - The TPL establishment process is context dependent. - Not only rational mechanisms are at play in the process. - It is important to acknowledge actors, not only systems. - It is important to acknowledge the process, not only the decision. / <p>ISRN/Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC-2003:27</p>

<p>Third party logistics (TPL), the procurement of an integrated set of logistics services in a long-term relationship between a shipper (goods owner) and a service provider, is today a viable option for how companies carry out their logistics activities. Very little has been written on implementation or change issues in a TPL setting; these issues are identified as important, but not elaborated. There is however reason to believe that implementation of TPL arrangements, or rather establishment thereof, involves a complex change process involving substantial change for a wide range of actors in both the shipper’s and the provider’s organisation.</p><p>When comparing literature that deals with the TPL establishment process with a stream of research that is concerned with logistics change, it comes to light that there is a discrepancy between the theoretical and methodological foundations of the former works, and what is written in these pieces regarding the process. It is concluded that recommendations for how to manage the establishment process are given without being founded in a theory of process, or research designs capable of studying process. The theoretical underpinnings of TPL literature are founded in a view of change as a matter of conducting rational analysis and conceiving the strategically wisest decisions for the logistics system as a whole. Implementation is viewed as an unproblematic exercise of issuing directives to affected actors, asserting that all actors are rational, therefore rationally conceived decisions will be accepted and implemented accordingly.</p><p>Therefore the overarching purpose of this research is:</p><p><strong>To explore the change process of third party logistics establishment</strong></p><p>To fulfil this purpose the two streams of research mentioned above are combined. A meta-model of process consisting of the three interrelated dimensions content, context, and process forms the starting point for the study of process, but this is not sufficient for a study of change; a theory of change which is capable of capturing the mechanisms of the change process as it unfolds is also needed. Therefore the theory of change of the second stream of research mentioned above is adopted.</p><p>The theory of change encompasses three models of change, which are archetypical representations of the mechanisms underlying change processes according to different assumptions of what change is and how change comes about. These models are denoted the linear, the processual, and the circular. One important aspect of this theory of change is that the approach to change should be aligned with the extent oflearning requirements on the actors who are affected by or involved in the change. An actors perspective is therefore called for, and adopted in this thesis.</p><p>This thesis is the first step of a wider research effort concerned with studying the process of establishing TPL. Therefore, of the three dimensions of change, the contentdimension is excluded from study in this thesis. Governed by the meta-model of process, two research objectives are formulated:</p><p><strong>To explore the context within which the TPL establishment process unfolds and describe the contextual dependence of this proces</strong>s</p><p><strong>&</strong></p><p><strong>To describe the change process of TPL establishment in terms of the linear, processual, and circular models of change</strong></p><p>The empirical investigation applied is a single-case retrospective study, in which the case is the establishment process between a Swedish company and an international TPL service provider. A total of fifteen actors have been interviewed; ten on the shipper side of the dyad, five on the provider side. Although the TPL establishment process is an interorganisational process, this thesis focuses on the intraorganisational process of the shipper, why the empirical material from the other side of the dyad is not used in this thesis, The interorganisational aspect, as well as the intraorganisational side within the provider’s organisation are nevertheless important, and will be included in future research.</p><p>The interviews were carried out in an unstructured manner, in which the interviewees were asked to retell the story from their own perspectives. Actors from varying positions, who were involved in the process, are included in the study; in the total sample all groups who were most affected or involved are represented. The interviews rendered ten stories of the studied process.</p><p>These stories were then analysed by means of a pattern-matching logic, in order to seek out the important contextual dependencies of the process, and to explore the mechanisms of the change process, as it evolved in context.</p><p>After having conducted this first step of the ongoing research effort, four main conclusions can be drawn:</p><p>- The TPL establishment process is context dependent.</p><p>- Not only rational mechanisms are at play in the process.</p><p>- It is important to acknowledge actors, not only systems.</p><p>- It is important to acknowledge the process, not only the decision.</p> / ISRN/Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC-2003:27