Research Paper on Logistics

Elements in Logistics

Technical data. It consists of scientific or technical information, for example, operator and maintainer manuals, engineering drawings, or any other documents which are important to maintain, support, and operate the system (Dima & Grabara 280).

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Personnel. There is civilian and military personnel who have skills and grades to support, maintain, and operate the system all through its lifetime, at peacetime and wartime rates based on other ILS features and related aspects.

Training. There is an active training program for reserve and active duty personnel on the procedures, civilians, training devices and equipment used for installing, operation and supporting the system (Dima & Grabara 281). It includes training the individual and training the crew.

Maintenance. It establishes the required basics of repairing and maintaining support aptitudes for the operational tools. This enables all the equipment to carry out its mission of operation for the system time.

Supplies. It is made up of all the necessary procedures to get, store and distribute secondary items plus classifying all the actions of the administration. Supplies include restocking and procuring inventory spares and parts and providing a primary backing.

Legal Forms and Modes of Transportation

There are four legal forms of transport. These are contracted exempt, common and private carriers. Private carriers involve leasing, ownership or a combination of the two and can include the modes of transport below;

Road transport. It is found in all parts of the world and involves using motor vehicles for example buses, bicycles, and trucks. The main disadvantage of this type of transport is maintenance.

Railway transport. This method of transport provides consistent services and allows transportation of heavy goods. In addition, it is comfortable, safe and very cheap (Buehler & Andrea 1083). It has been developed in many countries to get to the remote areas.

Water transport. This method can be to transport heavy commodities over a long distance. There are two fundamental forms of water transportation which include ocean water transport and inland water transport.

Air transport. It is the noblest means of transport which uses both domestic and international flights.

Pipeline transport. Pipes are used to transporting gas, crude oil, and water. It is safer to use pipeline transport than to use trailers or tanks in the transportation of these liquids (Buehler & Andrea 1084).

The least expensive mode of transport is water carriers, but they are the slowest and are not flexible. About eighty percent of all the U.S freight is transported by motor carriers. The fastest growing mode of transportation is the intermodal transportation due to the fact that it uses several modes of transportation. Rail carriers are the fastest shrinking mode of transport because of the old equipment and railroad infrastructure.

Intermodal Transportation Alternatives

There are a number of intermodal transportation alternatives. The first one is integrated road and rail service which enables customers to ship products from one door to another without worrying about modal barriers. Second intermodal transport alternative is the intermodal rail services. There is also an interrelation between ocean shipping and barge shipping which offers a cheaper solution to inland distribution (Caris &Macharis 108).

Value-Of Using-Service Pricing instead of Cost-Of -Service Pricing

Value-of-service pricing denotes to that what you choose as the price based on the utility factor of the service that you are providing. Cost-of-service pricing, on the other hand, means that the price is based on how much the company incurs. In this situation, what matters to the customer is the value of the service that they are receiving. Value-of-service pricing can be applied based on the following conditions (Ross & Stephen 15).

Willingness to pay. A seller must go and find out how much value the potential buyers see in his or her product. It is important to know what customers will actually pay for the product you are selling.

Build of the product. It entails a number of activities such as packaging, how you select your features and products, and who you are selling the product to. Doing this helps a seller to understand the desire of his customers and the characteristics of the product that he needs to develop over a certain period. After developing the minimal viable product, his product updates and features should be influenced by the demand of your customers (Ross &Stephen 18).

Get to know your customers. Customers are the people who make the decision to buy your goods. Their opinions are very important because they determine whether the pricing and packaging are right and whether or not they will purchase your goods (Ross & Stephen 16).

The Increasing Number and Size of Warehouses in the U.S

The average size of warehouses has increased in the U.S despite the fact that it increases the cost of carrying out inventories by approximately 143% with the largest expansions in California, Atlanta, and Cincinnati. This is due to the fact that increase in the size of warehouses is directly proportional to the demand for goods sold through e-commerce (Barroso, Luiz, 120).

An increasing in a number of warehouses leads to a high creation of in job opportunities especially in the regions that were abandoned before. The e-commerce sector is fuelling demand but at the same time is expected to continue growing. Coastal barriers, low vacancy rating, and increased e-commerce activities lead to an expansion in demand past the primary cities into tertiary and secondary markets. Consumers want to purchase anything anywhere and acquire goods within a short time, hence the increase in the size and number of warehouses. A study by Barroso and Luiz (98), shows that almost 20% of the latest warehouse space leasing has been triggered by e-commerce, a rise of just 5% within the past five years. Sales of global e-commerce sales are expected to rise to over 150% in the coming five years. Therefore, the number of warehouses is still increasing.

Definition and Uses of 3PLs

A 3PLs is a third party logistics service where there is shipping and storing of goods. It can be one service, for instance, warehouse storage or transport, or it can be a wide system of services with the ability to manage a complete supply chain. Companies use third-party logistics to reduce the future expenses by leveraging technology and skill to improve customer satisfaction by delivering cargo in time. This is because 3PLs have real-time alerts in case of deferrals and are capable of responding to fluctuations more efficiently. Additionally, third-party logistics provide global expertise, for instance, cargo forwarding services, global airfreight, duty optimization and documentation. It also reduces the wide range of risks for instance union issues, environmental risk, supply chain performance risk and workman's comp and enables start-up operations. The 3PL provides this backing in a company where even sufficient internal management resources may not carry out this duty.

The third-party logistics industry is rapidly increasing because it allows flexible operations in organizations. There is eradicates need to be worried about low seasons and high seasons because the transition is handled in a smooth manner. It also enables individuals to access valuable expertise since third-party logistics providers are often updated with technological advancements. It also has a diverse resource network allowing access to resources that would be expensive or not even available in-house. This type of logistics also encourages continuous optimization of resources hence enabling one to cut on wait times, improve the services offered to their customers, and maximize their profits. Organizations choose to use the third party logistics to have resources at their disposal and be capable of adjusting them properly under any conditions.

Definition and Uses of 4PLs

A 4PL is a fourth party logistics provider that collects and manages every resource, technology of a company's supply chain, its selection of providers and its abilities (Sohal & Amrik S,49). It focuses on managing the process, the people, and the technology. Adopting it enables one to see things from a different perspective, have more knowledge, experience, and technology of an existent in-house function.

There are a number of reasons why organizations choose to use fourth party logistic services. First, it allows organizations to have many potential suppliers, a large market for their goods and services, back-end system integration, and automation as well as standardization of orders that have been placed. It also reduces order cycle time and the cost of procurement (Saglietto, Laurence 110). Many organizations are considering the fourth party logistics solution because it leads to an increase in efficiency and sustainability of an enterprise.

Work Cited

Barroso, Luiz Andre, Jimmy Clidaras, and Urs Holzle. "The Datacenter as A Computer: An Introduction to The Design of Warehouse-Scale Machines." Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture 8.3 (2013): 1-154.

Buehler, Ralph, and Andrea Hamre. "The Multimodal Majority? Driving, Walking, Cycling, and Public Transportation Use among American Adults." Transportation 42.6 (2015): 1081-1101.

Caris, an Cathy Macharis, and Gerrit K. Janssens. "Decision Support in Intermodal Transport: A New Research Agenda." Computers in Industry 64.2 (2013): 105-112.

Dima, I. C., and I. Grabara. "Elements of Logistics Used In Industrial Operational Management." Industrial Production Management in Flexible Manufacturing Systems. IGI Global, 2013. 277-311.

Ross, Stephen A. "The Arbitrage Theory of Capital Asset Pricing." HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING: Part I. 2013. 11-30.

Saglietto, Laurence. "Towards A Classification of Fourth Party Logistics (4PL)." Universal Journal of Industrial and Business Management 1.3 (2013): 104-116.

Sohal, Amrik S., and Shams Rahman. "Use of Third Party Logistics Services: An Asia-Pacific Perspective." Handbook af Global Logistics. Springer, New York, NY, 2013. 45-67.