Abstract
Pallet management as a backbone of logistics and supply chain activities is essential to supply chain parties, while a number of regulations, standards and operational constraints are considered in daily operations. In recent years, pallet pooling has been unconventionally advocated to manage pallets in a closed-loop system to enhance the sustainability and operational effectiveness, but pitfalls in terms of service reliability, quality compliance and pallet limitation when using a single service provider may occur. Therefore, this study incorporates a decentralisation mechanism into the pallet management to formulate a technological eco-system for pallet pooling, namely Pallet as a Service (PalletaaS), raised by the foundation of consortium blockchain and Internet of things (IoT). Consortium blockchain is regarded as the blockchain 3.0 to facilitate more industrial applications, except cryptocurrency, and the synergy of integrating a consortium blockchain and IoT is thus investigated. The corresponding layered architecture is proposed to structure the system deployment in the industry, in which the location-inventory-routing problem for pallet pooling is formulated. To demonstrate the values of this study, a case analysis to illustrate the human–computer interaction and pallet pooling operations is conducted. Overall, this study standardises the decentralised pallet management in the closed-loop mechanism, resulting in a constructive impact to sustainable development in the logistics industry.
Highlights
In view of the research on logistics and supply chain management (LSCM), pallet management, which coordinates a sufficient number of pallets for storage and transportation, is a crucial, but under-researched area
This study revamps the existing pallet management which is regarded as a backbone to the LSCM through the combination of consortium blockchain, namely blockchain 3.0, and Internet of things (IoT)
This study explores a new business synergy through the blockchain-Internet of things (BIoT) technology to facilitate the decentralisation of pallet management
Summary
In view of the research on logistics and supply chain management (LSCM), pallet management, which coordinates a sufficient number of pallets for storage and transportation, is a crucial, but under-researched area. Material types of pallets can be softwood, hardwood, paper, metal or plastic to support diverse requirements throughout supply chains depending on cost-effectiveness, pallet lifespan, durability and damage resistance. There is no doubt that effective pallet management creates great business value in the LSCM. In view of current practice, most of the supply chain parties, such as logistics service providers, manage their own pallets in a linear flow, from sourcing, keeping pallet inventory, and using pallets in various scenarios to disposing of damaged pallets. 15 (ISPM-15) developed by international plant protection convention (IPPC) [2].
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