The decision optimization model of 4PL

With the Increased competition in the transport market, the new international logistics service provider must develop solutions tailored to meet the unique and special needs of each customer. Building upon the foundation of 3rd party outsourcing, 4PL emerges and acts as an electronic intermediator that connects suppliers, producers, carriers and customers to dynamic supply chain networks. Of such transportation networks the operative planning task of the hub-and-spoke network is a challenging task for the management. In particular, the transport management has to decide where all quantifies within the transportation network flow over the hub from or to the depots, or whether a hybrid hub-and-spoke network is preferred in which direct transports also take place. Upon these, Optimization model is studied and a 4PL optimization system for these operative planning tasks is developed and applied to a real case of a Chinese logistic service provider. The result of the case indicates that the model and algorithm presented in the paper can provide a reasonable supply chain scheduling scheme.