Physical Internet deployment in industry: literature review and research opportunities

Abstract

PurposeThe Physical Internet (PI) provides solutions to improve the current unsustainable economically logistics systems. This paper aims to identify the key themes and point out the gaps to demonstrate the current state of the PI deployment in the industry. Furthermore, this paper attempts to provide possible opportunities for future research to lead research directions of PI deployment in the industry.Design/methodology/approachThis paper follows the methodology of systematic literature review (SLR) including five processes of (1) identifying the search process; (2) selecting publications following the criteria that include and/or exclude a publication; (3) evaluating and analyzing the chosen literature; (4) reporting findings and (5) synthesizing future research opportunities. A total of 88 papers ranging from 2011 to 2021 were selected and coded for analysis.FindingsThis paper has identified 7 themes, including the PI concepts, assessments of the PI, components of the PI, innovative facilities applied in the PI, collaboration in the PI, the PI implementation and literature review. Meanwhile, five key methodologies including experimental, exploratory, review, design science research as well as mixed-methods have been classified. A framework has been proposed to summarize the results incorporating the real-life industries involved in the existing research. The authors also present the research gaps and future research opportunities for the PI deployment in industries.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first research focusing on the PI real-life implementation and thus contributes to the PI literature differing from other literature review papers. The proposed framework is useful to learn about the current core research themes in the PI. The discussion of future research opportunities may inspire interesting research delving into the field.

Freight insurance pricing strategy based on an online freight platform

“…For example, Björklund and Forslund (2018) believed that the sustainable development of the logistics industry requires innovative thinking. Through a literature review, Chen et al. (2022) showed the current situation of the physical Internet of things and provided solutions to improve the current unsustainable economic logistics system.…”

“…For example, Bj€ orklund and Forslund (2018) believed that the sustainable development of the logistics industry requires innovative thinking. Through a literature review, Chen et al (2022) showed the current situation of the physical Internet of things and provided solutions to improve the current unsustainable economic logistics system. Meanwhile, Luo et al (2022) proposed a new urban logistics solution through the physical Internet, designed a warehouse-type operation mode, provided flexible storage and transit solutions and argued that physical Internet urban logistics has more advantages than conventional solutions.…”

Special Issue on Hyperconnectivity in the Physical Internet

“…The vision of Physical Internet (PI) has gone through a strong maturing process since its conception (Montreuil, 2011), both in terms of its practical articulation and scientific grounding. Recent reviews of the PI-literature (Treiblmaier et al, 2020;Pan et al, 2021;Chen et al, 2022;Nguyen et al, 2022;Cortés-Murcia et al, 2022) explicitly link the PI system concepts to its founding disciplines: industrial engineering (IE) and supply chain management (SCM). Together these PI innovation agendas have helped to involve IE and SCM researchers outside the PI community and have promoted the bundling of global R&D efforts into converging streams of work.…”