Title
Design and analysis of optimal incentive contracts between fourth-party and third-party logistics providers
Abstract
Recent development in logistics has led to wide use of fourth-party logistics (4PL) and third-party logistics (3PL) service providers. Given the increase of the supply chain complexity and growth of intense competition, these logistics service providers (LSPs) face increasing challenges. A viable way is to cooperate. This paper aims to apply the principal-agent theory to the logistics industry by studying the horizontal cooperation between 4PL and 3PL providers through the use of incentive contracts. In contrast with traditional economic literature, compensation in this case is a combination of a fixed payment and a bonus based on the performances of the 3PL providers, in terms of service delivery rate and customer satisfaction level, which are industry specific. The problem is modeled as a risk-neutral 4PL provider hires multiple riskaverse 3PL providers to conduct different logistics tasks involved in a project. The goal of this paper is to study the design of optimal contracts that balance the incentives and risks of the 3PL providers from the perspectives of 4PL provider, so that both them can achieve maximized profits.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1109/ICAL.2012.6308175
ICAL
Keywords
Field
DocType
customer satisfaction level,contracts,horizontal cooperation,service delivery rate,logistics industry,intense competition growth,bonus,4pl service provider,risk-averse 3pl provider,incentive contract,service industries,profitability,agent theory,incentive contracts,risk-neutral 4pl provider,3pl service provider,incentive schemes,principal-agent theory,fourth-party logistics provider,logistics,risk aversion,customer satisfaction,compensation,profits,fixed payment,third-party logistics provider,provider horizontal cooperation,supply chain complexity
Service level objective,Customer satisfaction,Incentive,Service provider,Control engineering,Service level requirement,Supply chain,Engineering,Industrial organization,Payment,Service delivery framework,Marketing
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
2161-8151 E-ISBN : 978-1-4673-0363-7
978-1-4673-0363-7
1
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.36
0
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Qin Zhu1299.83
Richard Y. K. Fung250.76