Logistics Business Transformation for Sustainability: Assessing the Role of the Lead Sustainability Service Provider (6PL)

Abstract

Societal, economic and ecological prosperity will be highly affected in the next decades due to socio-demographic developments and climate change. The design of more sustainable logistics business types can address such challenges to build more resilient supply chains. Therefore, the discussion with regard to transformational potentials of logistics businesses provides valuable information to shape business strategies according to future sustainability requirements. Within the framework of this paper, a mixed-methods approach has been applied to explore and analyze drivers and barriers for sustainability transformations of logistics service providers (LSPs) and to evaluate related business strategies with optimization and simulation methods in a concrete regional context. So far, LSPs’ main obstacles are competitive pressure, focal firm orientation, and dependence on other supply chain members, while supply chain collaboration and integration, as well as the integration of sharing economy solutions and new digital technologies, have been identified as promising for sustainability transitions. Accordingly, this paper suggests a roadmap for the logistics sector while defining retention strategies such as growth, replication, mimicry, and mergence to meet future societal and environmental requirements. By doing so, this study contributes to theory by constructing the Lead Sustainability Service Provider (6PL) business model (arche)type and its role in societal transitions.

Current Advancements of and Future Developments for Fourth Party Logistics in a Digital Future

“…Moreover, providing further value-added services such as analytics, planning and monitoring are particularly enabled by the integrative activities of a 4PLP. Fostering information sharing, in particular, may positively influence the provision of other, new sort of 4PL services, such as cloud logistics [63,64], crowd logistics [17,[65][66][67] or super grid logistics [68]. With the help of effective big data analysis [69,70], the 4PLP can support its clients not only by enhancing operational efficiency, visibility and control over the supply chain, but by supporting new business opportunities through data-based intelligence services [68].…”

“…Although studies at the early stages expected a high growth of the 4PL concept until 2010 [4], it has only gained significant attention in recent years with increasing importance [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Moreover, authors like [12][13][14][15][16][17] vaguely proclaim further developments towards higher levels of fifth party logistics (5PL) or even more, which may be merely speculation than real trends observed.…”

Methods and models for creating a market 4PL operator based on a logistics division of a large industrial holding company

“…Одна из причин -простой ресурсов ввиду неравномерности транспортной работы и отсутствие сторонней загрузки свободных ресурсов. Вторая причина -низкая эффективность самих логистических процессов [20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

Algorithmic Foundations of Economic and Mathematical Modeling of Network Logistics Processes

“…A hybrid scheme that combines a simulation model and a mathematical programming model was proposed by [25] for designing logistic networks for co-firing biomass, specifically switchgrass, in conventional coal-fired power plants. Sustainable logistics business models extending was considered regarding 1PL (First-party logistics) to 5PL (Fifth-party logistics) scheme and related sustainable logistics practices [26]. This research [27] focusses on special issues of using a monitoring system for integrating sensor location and quality data into transport processes in automotive supply chains.…”