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Third-party haulage and warehousing operations are only used as emergency stop-gaps by non-transport businesses, according to delegates at Motor Transport's latest Fraikin-sponsored roundtable debate.

John Ball, managing director of Fraikin, said that 3PL operations were used for very specific reasons: "It seems that 3PL is used when a company is going through transition or substantial change. A decision to go with 3PL tends not to stick as long as the decision to go with own-account. "3PL  companies are often used to overcome those transitional, expertise issues and then a client goes back to own-account."

The John Lewis Partnership uses both own-account and 3PL: the former for the John Lewis department stores and a combination of the two for the Waitrose supermarkets. Deputy head of transport David Sheppard says: "There is no doubt that 3PL is much more expensive. But you have to make sure you're comparing apples with apples.

"The last RDC we opened, we made a conscious decision to go in-house because [with own-account] you have resilience in operation. We find that it's easier to control costs in-house. You can struggle to get the service levels that you want from a 3PL." 

However, all the participants agreed that in an ideal scenario, it was a case of matching the right traffic with the right operation. Eric Fisher, distribution manager at Dairy Crest, adds: "There's benefits to both and it's about cherry-picking what benefits your operation."