Logistics Company Unveils 3PL Service for Carriers
ORLANDO, Fla. — A logistics company unveiled a service here that will help motor carriers enhance their logistics business if they have one, or establish one if they don’t.
Logistics Resource Group, a third-party logistics company based in Overland Park, Kan., said the service will help carriers retain more control of their logistics operations, in light of increasing competition from 3PLs.
LRG will provide sales and marketing, engineering services and operations management to be a “full partner with motor carriers on the logistics side,” CEO Jim Ritchie said.
“Carriers have worked very hard to get into the [logistics] market, and sometimes it’s a love-hate relationship between carriers and 3PLs,” said Ritchie, who was a founder of less-than-truckload carrier YRC Worldwide Inc.’s Meridian IQ logistics unit, later renamed YRC Logistics.
He made his remarks at an Oct. 19 news conference at American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition.
While he would not disclose what carriers LRG already was working with, he said “three of the four on the LTL side are in the Transport Topics Top 100” list of top North American carriers, with annual revenues of about $50 million to $450 million.
LRG sets up the logistics business, which “is branded for the carriers,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for about a year but have been intentionally quiet. . . . We’re really an advocate for the motor carrier.”
Ritchie said motor carriers did not have to put up money but would share their logistics profits with LRG. Carriers would receive 35% of the gross margin on brokerage business on a shipment-by-shipment basis and split the profits with LRG at 50% each for contract logistics on an ongoing basis.
