specialreport
BY PETER BRADLEY, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
As business boomed,
two specialty apparel
companies found
themselves struggling
with order fulfillment.
Linking up with the
right 3PLs took
care of that.
The right fit
THIRD-PARTY WAREHOUSING AND DISTRIbution operations may be as old as the logistics
industry, but no one would argue they’ve reached
market saturation. In fact, the explosive growth of
outsourcing has emerged as one of the most significant trends in logistics over the past two decades.
It appears the trend has not yet run its course.
Nearly two-thirds ( 64 percent) of the shippers
surveyed for The 2012 16th Annual Third-Party
Logistics Study said they planned to increase their
use of third-party logistics service providers
(3PLs). The study, conducted by Capgemini
Consulting, Penn State University, and others,
was released last October.
This probably comes as little surprise to most
logistics professionals. The advantages of using
third parties, or logistics service providers, are
manifold, ranging from reducing brick-and-mor-tar assets and labor to more strategic issues
around such things as serving specific geogra-phies or taking advantage of expertise outside a
firm’s basic core competency.
The two stories that follow give a sense of why
companies make the move to logistics service
providers. The first is an account of how Cutter &
Buck, a specialized West Coast apparel company,
took advantage of a major 3PL’s location to serve
its Eastern corporate customer base. The second
tells how Xterra, a small company that markets
wetsuits to triathlon athletes, initially turned part
of its distribution over to a third party, then eventually outsourced its entire fulfillment operation.
