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Smart Logistics as a Digital Ecosystem: An Integrative Literature Review and Conceptual Framework
(2021)
Purpose of this paper:
Smart logistics is a popular topic these days, connecting logistics to the overarching trend of the “smart factory” or “Industry 4.0”. However, despite its attractiveness and suggested practical value, it seems to be still (1) limited to isolated applications in industry and (2) insufficiently conceptualized in academic research. The purpose of this paper is to develop a consistent conceptual framework for smart logistics that can be used to design integrated smart logistics solutions.
Design/methodology/approach:
Applying the theory lens of the digital ecosystem, we use an integrative literature review to identify and put into a consistent perspective the various conceptual elements of smart logistics suggested in extant research. We analyze these elements along three dimensions according to the main categories of digital ecosystems: (1) digital species (the smart objects in logistics), (2) space (the processes in which these smart objects are relevant), and (3) domain (the objectives these smart objects pursue). We classify the smart objects as intelligent products, while for the process dimension we make use of the building blocks (production, storage, and transportation) of the self-similar architecture of supply chains. The categories for the objective dimension are synthesized from the papers selected for the integrative literature review.
Findings:
The published research on smart logistics has already produced a set of smart objects in logistics. However, our analysis reveals that – beyond a common ground with respect to the underlying ubiquitous technologies of smart logistics – the conceptualization of the objects’ smartness, i.e. which objectives they autonomously pursue, is much less consistent. Our study shows that digital ecosystems are a promising approach to a consistent conceptualization of smart logistics.
Value:
Few papers systematically analyze the extant research on smart logistics, but they are either limited to a small subset of the supply chain, the underlying ubiquitous technologies or discuss a specific focus like the contribution of smart logistics to fulfilling individualized customer demands. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to integrate the extant literature into a consistent conceptual framework for smart logistics.
Research limitations/implications:
The conceptual framework still needs to be validated through discussions with industry experts and case studies.