Logistics, Volume 4, Issue 3 (September 2020) – 9 articles

During the last decade, digitalization has borne tremendous changes on the way we live and do business. Industry 4.0, the new industrial revolution, is merging the physical, digital and virtual worlds through emerging technologies that collide with each other and create a distinctive paradigm shift. Even though the topic of Industry 4.0, has attracted significant attention during the past few years, literature in this subject area is still limited. The main objective of this paper is to study the current state of the art and identify major trends and research shortcomings. To that end, the authors conducted a methodological literature review based primarily on the SCOPUS bibliographic database. The review returned 49 relative papers dealing with the paper’s subject area. Through a thorough study of the selected papers, four dominant literature categories were recognized and discussed in detail. According to the literature reviewed, it is evident that massive changes are underway for warehouses and intralogistics facilities. Still, despite the intense discussion and appeal of the subject, one of the most important challenges in the scientific area under study, as the literature highlights, is the absence of a matching, to its significance, number of real-life applications. To that end, this paper provides a detailed description of a Cloud-based IoT application drawn from a Distribution Center (DC) that supplies retail home furnishing and sporting goods products to stores in Greece and the Balkan region, with the objective to showcase the feasibility of such an investment, highlight its potential and provide motivation to practitioners to evaluate and proceed in similar technological investments. Full article

The main objective of this paper is the identification and evaluation of packaging elements by the involved managers in the food industry. Primary research data was collected using a questionnaire that was completed by marketing and logistics managers, as well as food technologists and executives assigned to environmental initiatives/practices, in the Greek food industry. The findings reveal that different managers have different perceptions regarding packaging shapes, colors, identification coding schemes and the provision of consumption ways. There are some common packaging elements that most managers agree on, which are: providing nutritional information, including marks that show compliance to environmental practices, being easy to transport and handle, and withstanding corrosion and wear. Moreover, the research confirms that: (a) Health and nutrition are two interrelated concepts that receive constant attention from the food industry, as well as from governments and consumers, and (b) The quality of a food product is inextricably linked to the quality of its packaging. Full article

In the specific case of maritime transport, one of the most notable examples of digitalization is smart ports. Their positive impact on the supply chain is enabling processes to be optimized through smarter production. In the case of Spain, the Spanish public entity Puertos del Estado (Puertos del Estado is a public business entity dependent on the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, with overall responsibility for the entire state-owned port system.) has launched Ports 4.0, the largest open innovation fund for the logistics-port ecosystem. It is therefore necessary to know the point of digitalization in which the Spanish ports are and the present scenario in which they develop their activity. For this purpose, a SWOT analysis (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats analysis) is proposed, which is an ideal tool to make a reliable diagnosis of the port system in relation to a certain project before which we wish to make a strategic decision, in this case digitalization, in order to establish a concrete action plan in this regard. This should be the first step towards developing the Ports 4.0 project. The main conclusion of the analysis is that Spanish ports are currently at a medium high level of digitalization, and that they continue to update and innovate in order to be increasingly competitive in this market, despite the fact that there is still a long way to go in digitalization. The main challenge for Spanish ports is that technology alone is not useful enough to reach Ports 4.0 status; the technology also needs to be used in an integrated, open and joint way by all the agents of the port community, which is one of the main handicaps at present. Full article

Quantifying the benefits of construction supply chain management through prescriptive models is a challenging and fast-growing research area that still lacks standardized optimization models with full integrative potential. In response to the needs and the peculiarities of the construction industry, this paper proposes an innovative model that merges temporal and project-based supply chains into a sustainable network with repetitive flows, large scope contracts, strategic alliances and economies of scale. It is a dynamic mixed-integer linear programming model for cost minimization of a three-echelon supply chain serving multiple sites with multiple products over a time horizon. Its novelty lies in yielding optimal decisions on network design, product quantities to be purchased and transported, shipments and inventory levels in all echelons under any logistics system in a multi-period, multi-product and multi-project environment with discount schemes and strategic preferences. The model is general enough to be implemented by any general contractor acting as a system integrator but also allows customization with logical constraints. All these features constitute an innovative, versatile and flexible managerial decision making tool. Model implementation is based on a spreadsheet optimization software and is followed by post-solution analysis, sensitivity analysis and multiple parameterized optimizations. Full article

This research supports the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) conceptualization, planning and implementation of a campaign for distribution of more than 12 million mosquito nets in Ivory Coast. Procured from four different suppliers in Asia, the nets were transported to the two ports in Ivory Coast before being pre-positioned at 71 Health Districts across the country, a mixed integer network flow model identifies optimal transport options. The process of modeling and the model developed in this paper brought a significant understanding of the problem and, consequently, a reduction in the overall procurement and logistics costs. The implications of using mathematical modeling by practitioners as a tool which contributes to solve humanitarian logistics problems are significant. Mathematical models, like linear programming, can greatly support overall decision-making within humanitarian organizations by helping to ensure that limited resources are used in the most cost-effective and efficient manner. However, it is important to ensure consultations with and involvement by on the ground practitioners to ensure developed solutions assessed to fit the operating context before being implemented. Full article

Courier, express, and parcel (CEP) services represent one of the most challenging and dynamic sectors of the logistics industry. Companies of this sector must solve several challenges to keep up with the rapid changes in the market. In this context, the introduction of autonomous delivery using self-driving trucks might be an appropriate solution to overcome the problems that the industry is facing today. This paper investigates if the introduction of autonomous trucks would be feasible for deliveries in urban areas from the experts’ point of view. Furthermore, the potential advantages of such autonomous vehicles were highlighted and compared to traditional delivery methods. At the same time, barriers that could slow down or hinder such an implementation were also discovered by conducting semi-structured interviews with experts from the field. The results show that CEP companies are interested in innovative logistics solutions such as autonomous vans, especially when it comes to business-to-consumer (B2C) activities. Most of the experts acknowledge the benefits that self-driving vans could bring once on the market. Despite that, there are still some difficulties that need to be solved before actual implementation. If this type of vehicle will become the sector’s disruptor is yet to be seen. Full article

Workpiece location is critical to efficiently plan actions downstream in manufacturing processes. In labor-intensive heavy industries, like construction and shipbuilding, multiple stakeholders interact, stack and move workpieces in the absence of any system to log such actions. While track-by-detection approaches rely on sensing technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Global Positioning System (GPS), cluttered environments and stacks of workpieces pose several limitations to their adaptation. These challenges limit the usage of such technology to presenting the last known position of a workpiece with no further guidance on a search strategy. In this work we show that a multi-hypothesis tracking approach that models human reasoning can provide a search strategy based on available observations of a workpiece. We show that inventory tracking problems under uncertainty can be approached like probabilistic inference approaches in localization to detect, estimate and update the belief of the workpiece locations. We present a practical Internet-of-Things (IoT) framework for information collection over which we build our reasoning. We also present the ability of our system to accommodate additional constraints to prune search locations. Finally, in our experiments we show that our approach can provide a significant reduction against the conventional search for missing workpieces, of up to 80% in workpieces to visit and 60% in distance traveled. In our experiments we highlight the critical nature of identifying stacking events and inferring locations using reasoning to aid searches even when direct observation of a workpiece is not available. Full article

In the article, a new phenomenon of global logistification provides a context for presenting the newest trends in the development of HR management and its role in logistics. The new trends include a growing internationalization of firms, combined flows of capital, people and technical knowledge, and the issue of key logistics competences. Against this background, the article describes a new model of the HR management function in logistics. The aim is to find the relationship between designing and delivering the personnel function in a firm and the effectiveness of logistics management. The key aspects of the personnel function management include talent and competencies management, personnel risk management, and employer branding. These HR practices are explored to determine attributes of the personnel function, and to describe challenges of the proactive human resource management in logistics. The article continues with a presentation of the results of empirical studies conducted in the period 2017–2018 of 236 large, medium-sized, and small Polish firms. As the primary methods, the research used a diagnostic survey, a questionnaire, and the statistical method of factor analysis. The second part of the article presents an original model of the personnel function in logistics management, with regard to the specificity of Polish firms. The findings based on the study results refer to both the present and future status of HR management in logistics. The main findings of the studies acknowledge the influence of all-embracing logistification on the volumes and structure of knowledge transfer in supply chains, and reveal a growing decentralization of HR management in large and medium-sized companies, resulting in an imbalance between the levels of personnel function implementation in large and medium-sized companies, compared with small firms. Full article

Inefficiency in complex reverse-logistical operations, such as the collection and transport of various wastes, can often be traced to two related factors. Adversarial and arms-length relationships between service providers and customers are commonplace, alongside surprisingly limited understanding of the cost base. This study investigated transparency and shared understanding as drivers for higher efficiency and lower costs. Observation and intervention in contractual negotiations was combined with analyses of cost and sensitivity, and a post-contractual transparency exercise with bidders where findings were shared with all parties. The work yielded both immediate efficiency gains and a longer-term infrastructure for cost evaluation and negotiation. Ongoing work is extending the approach into yet more complex and broader areas of municipal waste management. Full article