Fourth party logistics, known as 4PL, is the outsourcing of logistics operations to a single partner. The partner will be responsible for assessing, designing, building, running, and measuring integrated supply chain solutions for the customers.
The drama of the ship stuck within the Suez Canal has played out on the news cycles for over every week now. One week doesn't seem to be that long, but in supply chain terms, it are often an eternity. The warehouses of the past are gone and “just in time” delivery of products and parts is important within the way companies have chosen to work today — on the sting .
See this Forbes article: “Blocked Suez Canal Is Latest Reminder Why Companies Need Crisis Plans.” There really isn’t anything new about the difficulty we’ve watched grow on our television screens over the past seven days. what's somewhat new is how businesses and countries are reacting to the slowing of worldwide transport of products by ship. Syria imposed fuel rationing thanks to the shortage. Manufacturers are shutting down production lines thanks to parts not being available. every week of disruption isn't an eternity, but once you are sitting idle and time is money, it can seem to be an eternity.
Like always, the question is, will companies learn something from the experience, or because the ships start traversing the canal again, will it all just be a painful memory that's hoped won't be repeated? If you don’t want it to be repeated, then you would like to rethink your supply chain resilience and perhaps put some redundancy into the system. Some still consider redundancy to only be duplication, but once you need the flex in your system, the pennies spent in redundancy pays big dividends.
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