FACTORS AFFECTING THE PERFORMANCE OF THE PICKERS IN THIRD-PARTY LOGISTICS WAREHOUSES IN SRI LANKA: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF LITERATURE

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.