Corporations are constantly looking for more efficient logistics solutions in the face of growing market demands. However, it is not absolutely essential for them to have their own resources on hand: Outsourcing logistics processes to providers of fourth party logistics services (in short: 4PL services) not only frees up capacity, but also offers optimization potential for the entire supply chain. You can read here exactly how this works and what the expressions 4PL and 3PL really mean.
New logistical challenges are practically an everyday occurrence because of complex global supply chains, changes in statutory requirements and technological advances. In order to cope with them, more and more corporations are outsourcing work-intensive and time-consuming fulfilment processes related to warehousing and transport operations to specialist providers of 4PL services.
What does 3PL mean?
Third Party Logistics (3PL) describes a type of logistics service, where corporations outsource one or several fields of their logistics processes to outside specialists. 3PL providers concentrate on particular operative parts of the logistics operations. They may include warehousing, transport, packaging, dispatch or even elements in the field of customer services. They normally own and operate their own physical resources like warehouses, fleets of vehicles and distribution facilities.
As an experienced service provider, Rhenus handles 4PL services during every phase of processing any order:
The Online Supply Chain Accelerator (OSCA) is the software for supply chain management and it represents the digital core and the integration gateway for organizing all the partners and services. OSCA is a centralized tool that makes it possible to have end-to-end transparency, data centralization and optimization in order to coordinate several suppliers and logistical activities along the entire supply chain. The software can be easily connected to all common systems in your IT landscape or those of your partners through interfaces, either manually or using existing APIs.
The Rhenus Control Tower is a central node for monitoring and managing all the logistical processes and activities covering different transport channels. The system provides end-to-end transparency about all the movements of pallets, packages and express deliveries that use air, road and ocean transport services. The central aggregation and distribution of data improve the flows of information between all the trading partners involved and ensure standardized communications beyond national and corporate boundaries. As a result, it is possible to manage all the logistical processes more efficiently and deliveries can be made precisely according to set schedules.
Rhenus 4PL Services takes over the logistics services in several carefully planned stages in order to guarantee seamless integration that poses no risks:
Fourth Party Logistics provides a strategic solution to enable corporations to comprehensively optimize their supply chains in a fast-moving market environment where flexibility and efficiency are absolute key factors. Corporations are not only able to concentrate on their core areas of expertise by outsourcing their logistics to a 4PL specialist, but they also benefit from lower costs, improved fulfilment processes and a stronger market position. In the end, 4PL services are more than just a logistics model – they are a crucial factor for sustainable corporate success.
