A Systematic Literature Mapping of Current Academic Research Connecting Sustainability into the Warehouse Management Systems Context

Abstract

Globalization, digitalization and rapid development of technology have made supply chains more complex than ever before. Complexity has forced many organizations to outsource their warehouse activities to Third-Party Logistics service providers. They, in turn, deploy automatization solutions and tools such as warehouse management system (WMS) software to manage in-house logistics services. However, research into third-party logistics (3PL) and WMS has so far been scarce, especially, regarding WMS and its sustainability supporting aspects. Large-scale outsourcing has recently received increasing attention from high-level decision-makers, in particular as regards the overall sustainability of logistics-related actions and processes. This systematic mapping-based study examines the current state of the art of academic literature considering WMS and its intersections with topics related to sustainability. As a result of the specific focus of the work, only a small set of 22 studies was found to add value to the topic, which opens up additional research opportunities in this direction. The majority of the studies were journal articles (13) rather than conference papers (9). The most frequently used keywords in these studies addressed the topics of WMS, ICT, sustainability, warehouse technology and operations. The content-based analysis revealed five main thematic areas, namely, WMS concept development, optimization and improvement, Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0, safety, and sustainability. Surprisingly, only one publication was devoted purely to WMS and indices built on the triple bottom line approach. The study considered neither the functions of WMS, nor sustainability-related features of WMS. The remaining studies discussed sustainability mainly from the safety perspective. It is concluded on the basis of this study that there are significant opportunities for further research in WMS and sustainability.