Decision optimization analysis on supply chain resource integration in fourth party logistics

In recent years, the successful operation of the fourth party logistics (4PL) in practice has gradually demonstrated that it is an effective mode to integrate the complicated resources of a supply chain reasonably, efficiently and flexibly. However, there are no effective quantitative methods to guide the resource integration practices of enterprises and this situation will inevitably limit the practical application of 4PL and will become a major bottleneck of showing its superiorities. To solve this operational bottleneck in 4PL, this paper analyzes thoroughly the characteristics of the supply chain resource integration in 4PL mode from a quantitative view, set up an operational framework by case studies of surveyed enterprises combined with the empirical analyses of the supply chain resource integration. On this basis, this paper puts forward a decision optimization method of supply chain resource integration in 4PL based on the discovery, analyses and judgment about the dominant factors in the integration operations, then, sets up a mathematics optimization model for integration decision and an improved ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm to solve the decision problem. Finally, the paper uses a case simulation to illustrate that the optimization method and algorithm are feasible and valid. (C) 2010 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.