Operating model of a 4PL provider

Currently the number of 4PL providers is increasing on the market for logistics service operators. This seems to be a natural consequence of processes associated with the progressive trend to reduce costs. Consequently, large entities, managing their logistics chains, also decide to outsource operations related to the integration of these chains, passing their expertise in this field to outside 4PL logistics providers. In Europe, a turning point of this process was the last decade of the last century, and the automobile industry was the industry in which these phenomena were initiated. Stronger companies tend to switch sources of supply to Asia, Africa and South America emerged in those years. The construction of logistics chains became extended and more complex as a result of supply sources relocation. In these transformed and extended chains there was a need for deeper integration of both the physical flow and the regulator.