Häufig gestellte Fragen
What distinguishes an ERP for contract logistics from a normal WMS?
An ERP for contract logistics does not just map the physical warehouse processes but interlinks them with commercial functions such as client-specific billing, contract and SLA management and financial accounting across several parallel principals. A pure warehouse management system (WMS), by contrast, primarily covers goods receipt, putaway, picking, packing and shipping, and often leaves invoicing and cross-cutting reporting to adjacent systems. In the 3PL business, clean separation of customer inventories (multi-owner or multi-client logic) at the data level is mandatory for both system types, but the ERP adds the end-to-end data basis from the pick posting to the invoice. In practice, many service providers therefore combine a specialised WMS with an ERP, coupled via interfaces.
When is a dedicated 3PL WMS worthwhile compared with a WMS with a multi-client module?
A WMS designed specifically for third-party logistics pays off above all when several customers are served in parallel in one warehouse and each brings its own SLAs, posting rules, labels and EDI profiles. With only a few principals or little differentiation, a standard WMS with a multi-client module that separates inventories logically and at the data level is often sufficient. The decisive factor is less a fixed number of customers than the complexity: strongly diverging tariff models, extensive value-added services and client-specific billing argue for a specialised platform with an integrated billing engine. The concrete trade-off depends on the industry, warehouse structure and the desired degree of invoicing automation.
How do 3PL providers bill their services and which remuneration models exist?
In contract logistics, transaction- or activity-based tariffs are widespread, in which individual services such as pick and pack operations, storage days per pallet or storage slot, goods receipts and returns are charged separately. In addition, open-book or cost-plus models are common, in which the service provider transparently discloses its actual costs and an agreed markup is added, as well as flat-rate or minimum-revenue agreements for predictable base loads. These approaches are frequently combined as a hybrid, for example a monthly base fee plus transactional components and surcharges for value-added services such as co-packing or labelling. An integrated billing engine in the ERP/WMS is central to this because it automatically assigns every booked activity to the correct client and tariff.
Which EDI and GS1 standards must an ERP for contract logistics master?
In the 3PL environment, electronic data interchange (EDI) is effectively mandatory because large principals and retail chains require it; the GS1 standards EANCOM (based on EDIFACT) and GS1 XML are widespread. A central role is played by the despatch advice message DESADV, which announces the contents of a shipment before physical delivery, as well as the NVE or SSCC (Serial Shipping Container Code) for the unambiguous identification of each shipping unit. Via the scanned SSCC, the recipient can receive a pallet automatically without having to capture individual line items manually. Since every customer brings its own formats and mappings, the system must manage several parallel EDI profiles and increasingly also provide REST API connections as an alternative to classic batch EDI.
Which KPIs and SLAs are typical in contract logistics, and how important is customer self-service?
Contract logistics agreements define performance via measurable metrics, above all On-Time-In-Full (OTIF), which combines punctual and complete deliveries, as well as pick accuracy, inventory accuracy, returns rate, inventory turnover and cut-off compliance. These KPIs are set down in service level agreements and frequently form the basis for bonus-malus arrangements between service provider and principal. Modern 3PL customers today expect real-time transparency via a self-service portal with inventory overview, KPI dashboards and booking options instead of having to wait for manually produced reports. A good ERP/WMS delivers these evaluations automatically per client, turning KPI reporting into a sales argument at the same time.
How long does onboarding a new customer take in a 3PL system?
Connecting a new principal to an existing 3PL system typically takes several weeks depending on complexity; for classic, individually developed integrations, eight to twelve weeks are often cited as the industry norm. The effort arises above all from setting up master data, mapping the customer-specific EDI formats, configuring the tariff and SLA logic, and test EDI runs before go-live. Service providers with existing EDI infrastructure, preconfigured mappings and API-based connectivity shorten this time considerably; various industry reports put the possible reduction in onboarding duration at around 40 to 60 percent. The actual timeline depends on the number of interfaces, the degree of customising and the data quality of the new customer.