Abstract:
Since organizations choose to outsource supply chain functions to a third-party
logistics (3PL) provider, most of the firms in Sri Lanka outsource their supply chain
functions with warehousing, which is the most outsourced function that handles
their inventories. Order picking is the most expensive operation in a warehouse in
which it is worth identifying the factors affecting the performance of pickers. This
paper reviews the relevant literature on three main areas: third-party logistics
providers in Sri Lanka, the picker and order picking process, and employee
performance. The paper further analyzes the findings of the past literature and gaps
existing in the literature. Two categories of studies have been evaluated in this paper
in which the employee-related factors and the warehouse-related factors were
analyzed. Most of the papers that investigated employee performance have been
focused on leadership, motivation, and financial reward, while the papers that
analyzed the order picking process have been focused on storage assignment,
routing, and order batching. The importance of identifying the factors affecting the
performance of pickers in 3PL warehouses in Sri Lanka in both employee-related
factors, warehouse-related factors, and management-related factors together is
shown in this study. Future researchers are recommended to study further the
performance of pickers under three main factors: picker-related factors,
management-related factors, and warehouse environment-related factors.
