LOGISTICS PLATFORMS - TRENDS AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

Logistics platforms (LP) are business models developed to improve the performance of all logistics activities of a supply chain (SC). About logistics platforms, the scientific literature details the management, implementation, importance, typologies, comparisons with international platforms, as well as cited case studies therein. The literature also highlights many trends of the adoption of technology as well as challenges resulting from the rapid evolution of said technology. We present a discussion of an LP, as well as an LP’s importance to its SC. We discuss eight types of LPs, their applications, and their associated implementation phases. This important volume of articles that we summarize seeks to solve complex problems with mathematical formulations. The literature potentiates the processes carried out in LPs by means of case-study analyses through comparing some LPs of South America against the more technological-based and automation-based LPs of Europe, of Southeast Asia, and of North America. The studies of LPs in global SCs, and enclosed cycle SCs, have shown that there are many challenges stemming from global climate change, which places uncertainty in the process of estimating stochastic parameters in the new global market. This would mandate strengthening the methodologies of Hub- and Cross-docking and understanding trends, such as the need to fortify the management of LPs by utilizing information technologies and communication technologies and updating local markets to make global markets more resilient in the face of pending environmental shifts.