Third Party Logistics: A Literature Review

This paper offers a theoretical and empirical framework, for the third party logistics. It begins with an examination, of the various definitions of the third party logistics. These concepts lay the foundation, for the scope of the research and also establish a vision of, how third party logistics is viewed, in relation to a company's other operations. Logistics outsourcing is a focus in this literature review. The literature identified the trend in doing logistics outsourcing, together with its reasons and pitfalls in the theoretical background as a consideration, in making a decision to outsource the logistics functions. Furthermore, current practices and the experience of implementation of the logistics outsourcing, as well as an insight as to what the future trends are likely to be in some countries, are given. This paper states the theories and recent researches, related to the formulated questions.