APS Systems: Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) systems, introduced in early 1990’s works on the principal of relating information to different entities in a supply chain making it available to all entities. Such applications are aimed to decrease the inventory levels of a company through accurate supply and demand forecasting, reduced cycle times and perfect scheduling.
In the recent years there has been significant shift in the balance of power between the consumers and the organizations providing them products and services. Businesses in the world over, are struggling for competitiveness in a rapidly growing global economy. Consequently, business organizations have started reviewing their business process to develop competitiveness. The solution is to reduce cost and enhance customer service. These service firms have their core competency in logistics operations. Third party service providers, of 3PL firms, are either wholesaler, i.e. experts in one area of logistics, such as warehousing, transportation, inventory management etc, or integrators, who provide comprehensive logistics service solutions for the entire supply chain. Corporations have been outsourcing supply chain operations to 3PL and 4PL organizations for getting the cost and service benefits to build competitiveness. Additionally, other expectations in regard to this are value addition of the consumer delivery process, diversification of risk and reduced liabilities. The suppliers of the services have to organize all assets, add manpower along with hiring a facility on lease, or maybe purchasing it outright. In many situations commitments in the part of suppliers are very expensive.