Calls for papers

 

International Journal of Services Technology and Management

 

Special Issue on: "Role of Third/Fourth Party Logistics Providers in Logistics and Supply Chain Management"

Guest Editors:
Dr. G. Kannan and Dr. A. Noorul Haq, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India
Dr. Pradeep Kumar, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, India

Logistics has become more widely recognized in the last 20 years. The necessity of outsourcing the logistical operations like transportation, warehousing, packing and other value added operations is becoming inevitable to satisfy customers through the on-time delivery of goods/services at reduced cost. Industrial organisations are constantly in search of new solutions and strategies to develop and increase their competitive advantage. Outsourcing is one of these strategies that can lead to greater competitiveness. Briefly, it can be defined as a managed process of transferring activities to be performed by others. Logistics outsourcing or third- party logistics (3PL) involves the use of external companies to perform logistics functions that have traditionally been performed within an organization. A key rationale for this form of outsourcing is that with intensified global competition, firms are concentrating their energies on core activities that are critical to survival, and leaving the rest to specialized .rms. In industry logistics outsourcing has become a rapidly expanding source of competitive advantage and logistics cost savings.

This Special Issue aims to provide academic and practitioners with a collection of innovative research and development in supporting business decision making for the role of third party and forth party logistics provider in logistics and supply chain management. Two themes in the logistics outsourcing research have attracted interest among the researchers:

• the reasons for, the benefits and risks of outsourcing decision (make or buy)
• the various issues related to the 3PL/4PL and the selection of a best 3PL/4PL for the logistics and SCM industry

Subject Coverage
Contributors are encouraged to submit original manuscripts that are conceptual, case studies, or empirically-based; and focus on, but are not limited to, the following:

• Decision making in 3PL/4PL
• 3PL in supply chain management
• 4PL in supply chain management
• Reverse logistics in 3PL / 4PL
• Artificial intelligence techniques in 3PL / 4PL
• Data mining in 3PL / 4PL
• 3PL / 4PL in end-of-life products
• Collaborative logistics provider
• 3PL / 4PL performance measurement
• Selection of 3PL / 4PL
• Barriers of 3PL / 4PL implementations
• Case studies in 3PL / 4PL

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page

Important Dates

Manuscript submission: 31 October 2007

Notification of acceptance: 31 December 2007

Submission of revised manuscript: 30 January 2008

Notification of final acceptance: 28 February 2008

Submission of final manuscript: 15 March 2007