2021 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Knowledge Economy (ICCIKE) | 978-1-6654-2921-4/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICCIKE51210.2021.9410788
2021 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Knowledge Economy (ICCIKE)
March 17–18, 2021, Amity University Dubai, UAE
Case Study Analysis on Readiness of 3PL Industry in
Fruit Distribution Company
SATYA SHAH1
Centre for Global Logistics & SCM
Off-Campus Division
University of Bolton
Bolton, UK
s.shah@bolton.ac.uk
LIM HUEY YIN2
Centre for Global Logistics & SCM
Off-Campus Division
University of Bolton
Bolton, UK
m.chan@bolton.ac.uk
Abstract— The research aims to examine the level of readiness
among third-party logistics in Malaysia in fruits distributors. ZFruit Ltd is selected as the case study for this research. Z-Fruit Ltd
faces insufficient resources in dealing with their market expansion
into East Malaysia as well as the South East Asia region. Through
a literature review, this study examined the characteristics of fresh
fruits logistics and determine how third-party logistics may
possibly assist in solving their supply chain problems. A
quantitative research method was used for this research study.
Survey data were collected from 150 registered members of
Federation of Malaysia Freight Forwarders (FMFF). The collected
research data has revealed that 40% of third-party industry in
Malaysia are not ready to handle the fresh perishable logistics.
Through the research data, it showed that the criterion of Z-Fruit
Ltd set towards the third-party is available and practicable in the
existing market, however it is considered as pretty niche among the
industry standards. This can be seen with most third-party
vendors providing warehousing and consolidate freight services
but not the temperature-controlled service in avoiding any
operation complexity and business risk. In short, outsourcing is the
most strategic method for Z-Fruit Ltd to solve their insufficient
resources at the current stage. The conducted research study
provides Z-Fruit Ltd a selection criterion in searching for a
dependable third-party logistics partner.
population were the registered members of Federation of
Malaysia Freight Forwarders (FMFF). The findings of this
research study aim to help both the potential third-party
logistics partner and Z-Fruit Ltd to develop mutual
understanding and strategic management to improve future
business development and planning within Malaysia. Z-Fruit
Ltd was established in the year 2005 and located at the capital
of Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur. ZFL imports fresh fruits from
Thailand, Australia, China and Vietnam. Then to re-pack and
distribute the fruits locally from Northern to Southern and
Central region of West Malaysia. They trade a variety of fruits
which including; grapes, apples, pears, melons, cherry, and
kiwi. The business objective is to provide variety, best quality
and competitive price of fresh fruits to the customers. They
concentrate on major hypermarket, supermarket, wholesalers,
and local retailers as their target market [2]. ZFL outsource
transport and warehouse management to third-party logistic
from 2011 onwards. Regrettably, it was a terrible experience
that carried delivery failure and customer dissatisfaction. Sales
and operation team of the third-party are confident with enough
knowledge to handle fruits cargo. However, the knowledge
especially standard operating procedures stopped midway,
didn’t reach down to the ground handler of the warehouse and
transport division.
Keywords— Outsourcing, Third Party Logistics (3PL), Fresh
Fruit logistics, Perishable Logistics, Information Technology
II. RESEARCH BACKGROUND AND PROBLEM STATEMENT
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, Z-Fruit Ltd management had decided to expand its
business target market to East Malaysia and South East Asia
countries. Z-Fruit Ltd management foresees its existing
resources and capacity is inadequate to the incoming overseas
order. Insufficient funds with high investment risk have pushed
them to consider outsourcing. They are planning to outsource
the non-expertise area, which is freight cargo consolidation and
overseas distribution to third-party. Besides that, Z-Fruit Ltd is
considering outsourcing order fulfilment management so that
they could expand the geographical coverage and speed up the
delivery lead time [3]. In the present market condition, the
consumer has magnified their expectations for shorter lead time,
a lower-price cost with a better-quality product. Moreover, the
fresh food supply chain is getting complicated by the recent
consumer concerns on food hygiene, safety, and food quality
[4]. According to Z-Fruit Ltd.’s management team, they faced
There are numerous studies and research papers in the past to
study the selection criterion, benefits and the complications of
third-party logistics vendors in dealing with the global supply
chain management [1]. The research has concluded that thirdparty logistics play an essential role in the organization to
survive in this globalize competitive marketplace. One of
Malaysia local fruit distributor Z-Fruit Ltd (ZFL) has been
selected as a case study for this research. The purpose of this
research is to evaluate the readiness of the third-party logistics
industry in Malaysia to serve ZFL. This paper aims to identify
the problem statement and expectations of ZFL towards thirdparty logistics. Subsequently, literature review was conducted
to analyse the problem statements and propose third-party
logistic selection criterion to ZFL. One set of quantitative
survey questionnaire were identified, and the target sampling
978-1-6654-2921-4/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE
175
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY TIRUCHIRAPALLI. Downloaded on April 15,2025 at 13:16:57 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
plenty of fruit losses through supply chain process because lack
of cold storage facility, lack of knowledge training and lack of
standardized operating procedure. The main objective of this
study is to evaluate the readiness of third-party logistics in
growth with ZFL consumer trends and opportunities in the
South East Asia market. It is hoped that this research will
determine a pathway for third-party logistics and Z-Fruit Ltd to
improve in their respective in the business environment.
Formulation of research questions will guide on the literature
search in deciding what data is needed to be collected, analyse
and most importantly, it avoids any unnecessary information
and findings. This research study is essential to build
collaboration between third-party logistics and Z-Fruit Ltd in
Malaysia. This research study will benefit the Z-Fruit Ltd by
looking into understanding the importance of outsourcing and
how does third-party can assist in improving their fruit logistic.
Furthermore, this study breadth focuses on warehousing,
distribution and expertise of third-party logistics which is
beneficial for Z-Fruit Ltd to select a right partner for global
distribution.
Consequently, ZFL requires collaboration throughout supply
chain in order to ensure goods being tracked and managed from
farm to the consumer place in the shortest time. There are two
types of perishable loss to fresh fruits trading of Z-Fruit Ltd.
Firstly, ineffective method during transference that reduce the
quantity of fresh fruits such as quantity loss. Secondly, the
quality deterioration that decreases consumer preferable which
are categorized as quality loss for a perishable fresh product.
Finally, recent studies concluded that the most important
challenge within fruits and vegetable business is towards the
management of quality and safety while expanding upon the
delivery response through the distribution channels [17].
B. Warehouse Management
ZFL who mainly distribute fresh fruits demand a perishable
warehouse element in order to secure fruits freshness, safety and
extend the shelf lifetime. Location of warehouse is the primary
consideration of ZFL to select a third-party warehouse. Studies
have shown that proper utilisation of warehouse and
transportation management practices within the supply chain
network enables the flow of products within other stages of the
network and reaching the end consumer [18]. Besides that, ZFruit Ltd is in the hunt for temperature-controlled warehouse
located at Port Klang and Kuala Lumpur International Airport
(KLIA), for South East Asia market. ZFL has been
encountering costly storage charges on daily basis from
shipping co-loader and airlines for temperature-controlled
storage zone. The temperature-controlled system of the
warehouse is also one of the factors affecting judgement of ZFruit Ltd. They need a temperature-controlled warehouse to
preserve fruit freshness and maximize fruit’s shelf lifetime. The
temperature required by ZFL range from 0 to 12 °C and it
should be working all day long, for 24 hours at all 7 days a
week. Any temperature failure will directly affect the fruits
freshness and might have caused inventory wastage. The
temperature of warehouse is required to be regularly monitored
by once a month. Moreover, sanitation of the warehouse is also
part of ZFL’s consideration.
III. LITERATURE STUDIES
Globalization has influenced the importance of supply chain
management and the interest in the area has increased
considerably amongst academicians and practitioners.
Researchers are making efforts to analyse the complexity of
supply chain management that easily influenced by external
environment and internal facilities. People realized the
necessity to implement effective supply chain to compete in
borderless market. There has been an increase and the
concentration on logistic outsourcing over the last two decades
with the business expansion and globalization. Researchers
identified that market unpredictability, hyper-competitive
environment, and consumer pressure, to reduce product cost and
cycle time has further motivated the growth of outsourcing to
third parties [5]. This research study will be working on how
third-party logistic capability affects the Z-Fruit Ltd business
competitiveness. ZFL should have intended their purpose of
outsource, described the extend of ownership with outsource
activity and should have set expectancy towards the third-party
logistics partner.
C. Freight Cargo Consolidation
Z-Fruit Ltd is looking for a third-party logistic to handle freight
arrangement. Freight can be defined as a transfer of goods from
origin to destination through ship, aircraft or truck. Z-Fruit Ltd
requires freight service for fruits import and export to East
Malaysia and South East Asia market. They will be assessing
the freight service based on destination, the frequency, types of
service, temperature-controlled and sanitation of the transport.
Primarily, ZFL requires air and sea freight service to East
Malaysia and South East Asia capital cities port/airport. They
have a preference on loose container load (LCL) sea freight
services due to demand uncertainty and lesser business volume.
Moreover, ZFL prefers to have direct route types of freight
service. Flight or vessel transhipment might expose fresh fruits
to temperature instability and unhygienic handling that might
be the possible cause of fruit’s quality and quantity reduction,
including product perishability challenges within the network
and thus increasing greater risks to product offering [18].
Hence, research examines review study on characteristics of
perishable logistic compliance with expectation of ZFL towards
the third-party. This review study is expecting to generate a
theoretical framework to act as a working guideline for ZFL
outsourcing management and designed a set of questionnaire
survey to evaluate the readiness of third-party logistics industry
in Malaysia. To address ZFL outsourcing management process,
research literature review focusses on four sections: (1)
warehouse management, (2) freight cargo consolidation, (3)
information technology system and (4) professionalism of
employees among third-party logistics companies. Studies have
highlighted that 3PL service provider is viewed as an important
element within the globally competitive markets [17].
A. Characteristics of Fruit Logistics
Z-Fruit Ltd are concerned on the fruit’s freshness, appearance,
and extended shelf life. It was because, a desirable appearance
of fresh fruit works as an indicator to the quality and of nutritive
value to the consumer [6]. Fruit’s freshness displayed on the
rack will directly influence the consumer’s preference.
D. Information technology system
With the fast pace development on the logistics industry, factors
such as high-efficiency and speed, as well as accurate delivery
have become the new important goals of the industry, thus the
176
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY TIRUCHIRAPALLI. Downloaded on April 15,2025 at 13:16:57 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
intelligent logistics play an important role and has been
favoured by enterprise. Technology has rapidly changed the
logistics’ core competency, service delivery models and
operational processes. One of the critical factors in selecting a
right third-party logistics partner was its integration system [7].
The availability of advanced technology system enables ZFL in
achieving competitive advantage through real-time tracking and
report for management decision making. It enables ZFL’s
internal and external parties to access real-time information
from the supply chain processes. It also works as an information
exchange platform to enhance quality of information and
capability of each party, to cope with business uncertainty.
Additionally, Z-Fruit Ltd is approaching a third-party logistics
with order fulfilment system to handle East Malaysia and South
East Asia market. It is a system works to manage steps
involving its receiving, processing and delivering orders to end
customers. Z-Fruit Ltd is expecting distribution centre to have
this system to manage order fulfilment on behalf of them. It
would help to reduce order delivery lead time, increase rack
replenishment and solve the problem of geographically
separation between employees and inventory. It is expecting
advanced technology information system which will be
accessible by both internal and external business parties.
Similarly, an approach developed by recent studies proposed on
two form of logistics as platform logistics or self-logistics for
food delivery to achieve profitability and higher sustainability
within the supply chain [20].
Fig. 1. Theoretical framework of Z-Fruit Ltd (ZFL) Logistics Outsourcing.
IV. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research study applies a unique approach to select a local
fruit distributor in Malaysia named Z-Fruit Ltd. The research
hypothesis will explain on the expectations of Z-Fruit Ltd
distributor towards third-party logistics. The research seeks to
understand on how third-party logistics contribute to solve
insufficient resource, improving the operations of Z-Fruit Ltd
distributor, and make them a competitive company in fruit
distribution industry. The research will evaluate on how ready
third-party logistics industry is in improving ZFL business. It
will also assess on whether third-party logistics are supportive
in the development and expansion of ZFL distributor business.
Questionnaire method will be used during data collection and
sampling procedures. The research conceptual framework is as
shown in figure 2.
E. Expertise of employees
Employee is measured as an intangible resource that involving
knowledge, skills, experience and attitude that are difficult to
copy compare to physical capability [8]. Effective human
resource management lead to reliable problem-solving skill,
reduce risk of perishable logistic, a professional working
environment and enhance competitive advantage to an
organization [7]. Employees in supply chain process is playing
important roles in ensuring fruits safety and hygiene. Earlier
studies highlight that people who do not have specific
knowledge on consequences of the change will probably allow
and lead to fruits contamination, second-rate quality, and goods
rejection from customer [9]. Therefore, the knowledge,
commitment, and capability of personnel are significant, to
work out their employed responsibility throughout the supply
chain process. Professionalism is one of the main factors
considered by ZFL. It can be determined by the health status,
employees training and industry reference of the organization.
Expertise can be achieved by conducting a regular internal
training, sharing sessions and external programs or interactions
with employees. Best practices to handle fruit logistic, the
temperature-controlled and sanitation method should be
refreshed in the training regularly [10].
Literature
Review
AS-IS
Study
Framework
Development
Results and
Analysis
Fig. 2. Research Conceptual Framework
V. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The main objective of this section is to analyse the data findings
collected from the questionnaires. Data has been analysed using
and presented to describe the findings of each dependent
variable. It functioned to test the hypotheses in this research
study. A total of 200 sets of questionnaires were distributed to
the target sample population. However, only 160 set
questionnaires were returned with 10 set forfeited due to
incomplete answers; hence, only 150 set of questionnaires were
used to test the research hypotheses. Data findings from each
section in the questionnaires were analysed, which are
warehousing, freight consolidation, information technology
system, and professionalism of the organisation. These research
findings evaluate the level of readiness among third-party
logistics based on each outsourcing section. From there, Z-Fruit
Ltd will be able to decide the extent of outsourcing to solve the
problem of insufficient resources in the organization.
F. Theoretical framework and related research issues
Since third party logistics for food and beverage industry is
widespread to analyse all the theoretically possible
characteristic and requirement, research has been narrowed
down to a selected fruits distributor in Malaysia, ZFL. The
accessibility of third-party logistic service provider has been
geographically fixed at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Basically,
ZFL is expecting a third party logistic to assist the market
expansion to East Malaysia and South East Asia. ZFL’s
outsource objective, the four key sections, and the essentials for
each outsourcing extend has been analysed and recognized in
order to guarantee the effectiveness. Figure 1 below provides an
overview on evaluating the level of readiness among 3PL
service providers in Malaysia to serve fruits distributor ZFL.
A. Warehouse Management Analysis
Below figure 3 represents the availability of temperaturecontrolled warehouse in the range of 0°C - 20°C to temporary
store ZFL’s inventory for a period. They require warehouses at
177
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY TIRUCHIRAPALLI. Downloaded on April 15,2025 at 13:16:57 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
four different locations, which are Port Klang and Kuala
Lumpur International Airport in West Malaysia; Kuching and
Kota Kinabalu in East Malaysia. The column chart illustrated
that Port Klang has the highest availability of temperaturecontrolled warehouse, which is 35%, and KLIA has 7.5% only.
The data findings presented it is easier to source a temperaturecontrolled warehouse in Port Klang compare to KLIA. Besides
that, there are 22.5% of respondent companies offering a
temperature-controlled warehouse at both KLIA and Port
Klang. Z-Fruit Ltd could probably appoint third-party logistics
to handle both warehouses in West Malaysia.
complete cold-temperature airfreight service to every desired
destination of Z-Fruit Ltd [11].
Fig. 4. Availability of Temperature Controlled Airfreight Service
Others are offering airfreight service to a selected destination
only and average with less than 5.0%. Somehow, airfreight
service is preferable by Z-Fruit Ltd because of the short transit
time to maximize the fresh fruits rack shelf time.
C. Information Technology System Analysis
Figure 4 presents the types of information technology system
offering by the respondent companies. Z-Fruit Ltd is expecting
a third-party logistics with advanced information technology
system to manage geographical distribution and encourage a
higher degree of information communication between the
supply chain parties.
Fig. 3. Availability of Warehouse Service at Desired Location
However, only 2.5% of respondent companies can offer a
temperature-controlled warehouse covering both West & East
Malaysia. The research findings reveal that there is certain level
of difficulties in implementing centralized outsource by
selecting one third-party to handle all ZFL’s outsource
warehouse. Limited number of service providers will be
influencing the buying power of Z-Fruit Ltd and storage charges
become prohibitive. Moreover, the findings are surprised that
30% of respondent companies are not offering a temperaturecontrolled warehouse at any location in Malaysia. Few of the
respondents reverted that they do offer warehouse service but
not temperature-controlled warehouse. They would prefer to
handle general cargo to prevent the risk of perishable quality
and quantity loss throughout the storage period. In short, Z-Fruit
Ltd may appoint a third-party logistics to handle both Port
Klang and KLIA warehouse to temporary store both airfreight
and sea freight fresh fruits cargo. It helps to solve the problem
of insufficient space in ZFL’s existing warehouse. Due to the
low East Malaysia distribution centre, Z-Fruit Ltd might have
to think through other possibilities, for example, increase the
freight frequency or to deal directly with the local warehouse
service provider in East Malaysia.
Fig. 5. Types of IT System Offering by respondent companies
Initially, Z-Fruit Ltd is looking for three types of information
technology systems to manage its supply chain in order to gain
a competitive advantage in the globalized market. However, the
survey findings revealed that only 5.0% of the respondent
companies are up to date with a complete system available for
ZFL. Besides that, 20% of the respondent companies are
offering global positioning and 7.5% offering order fulfilment
system only. The inventory management system has the highest
availability of consuming 30%. ZFL may shift towards
inventory management only to have a wider range of options. It
helps to manage perishable inventory level while balancing
both supply and demand in the market.
B. Airfreight Cargo Analysis
The availability of respondent companies who are offering
temperature-controlled range from 0°C to 20°C airfreight cargo
service to the desired location is as shown in figure 3. Z-Fruit
Ltd needs to survey the service availability in order to decide
the location of the third-party warehouse and estimate the
delivery lead time to the consumer market. Bar Chart revealed
that 40% of the respondent companies do not offer temperaturecontrolled airfreight service to Z-Fruit Ltd looked-for
destination. 30% of the respondent companies are offering
D. Employee Professionalism Analysis
ZFL was emphasizing on the importance of evaluating
employee's professionalism among third-party logistics. The
expertise of employees will be affecting the fresh fruits hygiene,
safety, and preserve the shelf time throughout the supply chain
procedures. It separated into two categories, from internal
management or external parties.
178
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY TIRUCHIRAPALLI. Downloaded on April 15,2025 at 13:16:57 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
purpose. Freight cargo consolidate are common in the existing
market but not the temperature-controlled consolidate service
[14]. Although, the availability of temperature-controlled
airfreight service is higher than LCL service, but they are more
expensive than LCL freight service. Z-Fruit Ltd must compare
the freight in terms of rates, frequency, transit time and
availability of port/airport warehouse to decide the transport
mode of distribution.
Research has demonstrated that the availability of East
Malaysia trucking service is very limited among the respondent
companies. It is similar as East Malaysia warehouse that Z-Fruit
Ltd will have to approaching third-party logistics directly in
East Malaysia for the distribution purpose [13]. Z-Fruit Ltd is
looking for third-party logistics with advanced information
technology system and they are targeting three types of supply
technology system including inventory system, global
positioning and order fulfilment system [15]. The availability of
inventory management has the highest ranking, second-rated
global positioning system and the least order fulfilment system.
At this moment, Z-Fruit Ltd could only focus on inventory
management to ensure the inventory are well taking care of. The
others are optional to improve overall effectiveness might have
to delay afterwards.
Fig. 6. Instructor of employees training in respondent companies
Based on the pie chart, 65% of the respondent companies are
conducting both internal and external training to their
employees. The method of obtaining data from internal
management or external parties having 23% and 2%
respectively, whereas 10% of respondent companies are not
obtaining or conducting any training to their employees. ZFL is
expecting third-party logistics with training obtaining from
external parties. They have confidence that an organisation with
external training will be able to propose and conduct strategic
global supply chain management. Research findings reflected
that ZFL 's expectation is possible and practicable in the
existing market. The overall necessity of Z-Fruit Ltd towards
third-party logistics has been analysed in this chapter. The
expectation is available and practicable in the existing thirdparty logistics industry located at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It
demonstrated that Z-Fruit Ltd is on the right track to have a
workable third-party selection criterion for its logistics
outsourcing. However, the availability of all-inclusive thirdparty is considered as niche and limited in the existing market.
Hence, ZFL will have to review its outsourcing management to
make it a centralized or decentralised approach.
The limitations of this research within literature review
materialise the advantages of logistics outsourcing and
capability of third-party logistics to improve logistics and
distribution effectiveness of Z-Fruit Ltd. The research
concentrates on supply chain efficiency for food logistics who
are sensitive to time and temperature [16]. It highlights fresh
perishable knowledge and propose potential third-party
selection criterion for them. Future research is recommended to
evaluate the third-party logistics in East Malaysia. It has
determined that the warehouse and trucking availability in East
Malaysia are classified in short supply. This probably have
happened because lack of collaboration or cooperation between
West and East Malaysia third-party companies. Hence,
researcher has mentioned upcoming research to concentrate the
third-party respondent companies in East Malaysia. The
research study is advantageous to both food and third-party
logistics in Malaysia. Z-Fruit Ltd must evaluate the selected
third-party in terms cost, service level and payment terms to mix
match with their expected outsource achievement too.
VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Research findings discovered that it was not easy to source a
third-party logistics to handle perishable logistics, especially
fresh fruits cargo in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. At least 40% of
respondent companies, answered they are not ready to serve a
fruits distributor [12]. Moreover, out of 40% respondent
companies that responded yes, numerous of them are unable to
fulfil ZFL’s expectation in terms of freight consolidate and
information systems availability. In short, it is probable but
challenging to source a practicable third-party to handle ZFL’s
outsourced logistics in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
REFERENCES
[1]
The feasibility that Z-Fruit Ltd concerned the most is the
location of the third-party warehouse. The warehouse location
at Port Klang has the highest availability, second ranked is
KLIA and the least are Kuching and Kota Kinabalu at East
Malaysia. Hence, Z-Fruit Ltd should consider approaching
third-party logistics directly in East Malaysia for the
distribution centre purpose [13]. The limitation of warehouse
availability at desired location and warehouse certification
influence Z-Fruit Ltd to consider warehouse without
certification. It is workable with conditions that Z-Fruit Ltd
must improve fruits packaging to prevent contamination and
increase fruits protection throughout the supply chain process.
Z-Fruit Ltd is concerned about the availability of temperaturecontrolled freight consolidation service in the way of airfreight,
LCL freight and trucking console service for distribution
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
179
Kwong, Y., Hongegeng, Z., Andy, C. & Cheng, T., “The impact of thirdparty logistics providers capabilities on exporters performance”.
International Journal Production Economics, 135(1), pp. 741-753, 2012
Fernie, J. and Sparks, L. “Logistics and retail management: emerging
issues and new challenges in the retail supply chain”. Kogan page
publishers, 2018.
ILO. Sectoral Studies on Decent Work in Global Supply Chains:
Comparative analysis of good practices by multinational enterprises in
promoting decent work in global supply chains [Online] ILO, Geneva,
2016
Balaji, M. and Arshinder, K. “Modeling the causes of food wastage in
Indian perishable food supply chain”, Resources, Conservation and
Recycling, 114, pp.153-167, 2016.
Erturgut, R. “The future of supply chain and logistics management in the
strategic organizations: contractor companies and new generation
suppliers”, Procedia-Social & Behavioral Sciences, 46, pp.4221-25, 2012
Bochtis, D., Iakovou, E. & Vlachos, D. Supply Chain Management for
Sustainable Food Networks, John Wiley & Sons, England, 2016.
Liu, C., Huo, B., Liu, S. and Zhao, X. “Effect of information sharing and
process coordination on logistics outsourcing”, Industrial Management &
Data Systems, 115(1), pp 41-63, 2015
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY TIRUCHIRAPALLI. Downloaded on April 15,2025 at 13:16:57 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
[8]
Larsen, T., Schary, P. & Mikkola. “Managing the Global Supply Chain”,
Frederiksberg: Copenhagen Business School Press, 2007
[9] Motarjemi, Y. & Lelieveld, H. “Food Safety Management: A Practical
Guide for the Food Industry”, San Diego: Elsevier Science & Technology,
2013.
[10] Schug, D. “FSMA’s sanitary transportation of food rule”, Food
Engineering, 90, pp. 36-40, 2018
[11] Raut, R., Kharat, M., Kamble, S., and Kumar, C.S. “Sustainable
evaluation and selection of potential third-party logistics (3PL) providers:
An integrated MCDM approach”, Benchmarking: An International
Journal, 25(1), pp.76-97, 2018
[12] Supply Chain 24-7. Third Party Logistics Articles from from Supply
Chain 24/7 Topic. [online] Supplychain247.com. Available at:
https://www.supplychain247.com/topic/category/3pl
[Accessed
28
September 2020]
[13] Jung, H. “Evaluation of Third Party Logistics Providers Considering
Social Sustainability”. Sustainability, 9(5), p.777-95, 2017
[14] Zikopoulos, C. “Determination of freight rates under stochastic demand
and freight consolidation savings”, International Journal of Production
Research, 57(17), pp.5556-73, 2018
[15] Zhang, Q. “Structure and Development of Management Information
System in Furniture Enterprises”, Information Technology Journal,
13(10), pp.1709-15, 2014
[16] Food Logistics. Rockstars of the Supply Chain: Food Logistics Names
2019
Champions.
[online]
Available
at:
https://www.foodlogistics.com/awards/article/21048087 [Accessed 19
September 2020].
[17] Raut, Rakesh D., Bhaskar B. Gardas, Vaibhav S. Narwane, and Balkrishna
E. Narkhede. "Improvement in the food losses in fruits and vegetable
supply chain-a perspective of cold third-party logistics approach."
Operations Research Perspectives, 6, 2019
[18] Abbasi, Sepehr, Ali Saboury, and Mohammad Saeed Jabalameli.
"Reliable supply chain network design for 3PL providers using
consolidation hubs under disruption risks considering product
perishability: An application to a pharmaceutical distribution network."
Computers & Industrial Engineering, 152, 2021.
[19] Hu, Lu, Juan Xiu Zhu, Yuan Wang, and Loo Hay Lee. "Joint design of
fleet size, hub locations, and hub capacities for third-party logistics
networks with road congestion constraints." Transportation Research Part
E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 118, pp 568-588, 2018
[20] Niu, Baozhuang, Qiyang Li, Zihao Mu, Lei Chen, and Ping Ji. "Platform
Logistics or Self-Logistics? Restaurants’ Cooperation with Online FoodDelivery Platform Considering Profitability and Sustainability."
International Journal of Production Economics, 2021
180
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY TIRUCHIRAPALLI. Downloaded on April 15,2025 at 13:16:57 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.