Moving In With Manufacturers, Amazon Delivers A New Approach
Amazon initiates a new trend in supply chain management by handling 3PL (3rd Party Logistics) for its manufacturers in order to reduce the Time-To-Delivery (TTD) much shorter between manufacturers and consumers.
Today, most 3PLs are already hosting market place by providing logistics service at their distribution centers (DCs). Vendors and manufacturers are sending their goods to those DCs and the 3PLs handle the logistics for the vendors and manufacturers from those DCs. Amazon moves the 3PL services further to the “upstream” of its supply chain by moving the 3PL services from its DCs much closer to its manufacturers. This approach is quite different from Wal-Mart‘s logistics strategy, which is a centralized 3PL.
The benefit of the new distributed 3PL approach is worth watching. If you are interested in how to innovate your logistics operations, feel free to contact us.
