The Internet of Things for Logistics: Perspectives, Application Review, and Challenges

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) vision enables multiple of resource-constrained embedded devices, objects, and humans to connect together through the Internet protocol for a ubiquitous data exchange. Logistics is considered to be a key player poised from this vision to achieve the full visibility and transparency through leveraging the pervasive interconnectivity to collect reliable and safe real-time data. In addition, the valuable information extracted and transformed from the IoT data can be exploited to create intelligent services and applications to improve the logistics activities as well as the overall performance of logistics operations. This paper aims at reviewing the state-of-the-art applications of IoT in the logistics sector. Although the adoption of IoT potentially gains huge benefits, there still exist barriers preventing the full adoption of IoT in the logistics. This paper also discusses such challenges that promise to expose a wide range of open research regarding the integration of IoT in the logistics domain.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet of Things (IoT)
• IoT technologies
• IoT building-blocks
• Smart logistics
• Green logistics
• Physical Internet
• Logistics operations
• Efficiency and sustainability

Notes

1 CISCO IoT, https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/internet-of-things/overview.html.

2 DHL IoT, https://www.logistics.dhl/global-en/home/insights-and-innovation/thought-leadership/trend-reports/internet-of-things-in-logistics.html.

3 Atkinson, W. (July 2008). Green Packing: Waste Not, Want Not. Inbound Logistics. https://www.inboundlogistics.com/cms/article/green-packaging-waste-not-want-not.

4 WRAP (2010). The Courtauld Commitment, http://www.wrap.org.uk/category/initiatives/courtauld-commitment.

5 Reusable sofa bag. http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/15203-06%20Argos%20CS%20LoRes.pdf.

6 Reusable “Carrierpac” packaging, http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Report%20-%20reusable%20transit%20packaging%20kitchen%20worktops.pdf.

7 Reusable transport and storage systems. http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/1BL%20Usability%20Works%20TechReport%20Complete%2023rd%20April%2007.pdf.

8 Reusable transit packaging. http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/15203-05%20Overall%20CS%20LoRes.pdf?

9 EPCIS, GS1 standard. https://www.gs1.org/epcis/epcis/1-1.

10 “'No-left-turn-policy”' of UPS. https://theconversation.com/why-ups-drivers-dont-turn-left-and-you-probably-shouldnt-either-71432?utm_source=datafloq&utm_medium=ref&utm_campaign=datafloq.

11 inBin project. http://www.industrie40.iml.fraunhofer.de/en/ergebnisse/inbin.html.

12 TRAXENS project. http://www.traxens.com/en/.

13 Smart Freight Management System. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/industrial-automation/smart-freight-technology-powered-by-the-internet-of-things-solution-brief.html?wapkw=smart±freight±technology±powered±by.

14 Simple Links project introduction. https://www.theconsumergoodsforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/CGF-Simple_Links_White_Paper.pdf.

15 UPS. https://www.ups.com/us/en/services/individual-shipper/ups-access-point-deliveries.page.

16 MailHaven. https://mailhaven.co/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the MSIT (Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the Grand Information Technology Research Center support program (IITP-2020-2020-0-01612) and supervised by the IITP (Institute for Information & communications Technology Planning & Evaluation), Priority Research Centers Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2018R1A6A1A03024003), and Korea Research Fellowship Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF-2020R1I1A1A01073019).

Notes on contributors

Hoa Tran-Dang

Hoa Tran-Dang received the BE degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST), Vietnam and the MS degree in electronics engineering from Kumoh National Institute of Technology (KIT), South of Korea in 2010 and 2012, respectively. He pursued the PhD degree with University of Lorraine, France during 2013–2017. He currently works in department of ICT convergence engineering at Kumoh National Institute of Technology, South of Korea as a researcher professor. His research interests include wireless sensor networks, internet of things (IoT), physical internet, and radio resource management in wireless industrial networks. Email: [email protected]

Nicolas Krommenacker

Nicolas Krommenacker received his PhD in computer engineering and information technology from the Lorraine University, France (2002). He is associate professor at the Networking and Telecommunications department, University of Lorraine, and member of the Research Center for Automatic Control of Nancy (CRAN – CNRS UMR 7039). His research interests include wireless communication systems and sensor networks, localization techniques and physical internet. Email: [email protected]

Patrick Charpentier

Patrick Charpentier is a full professor in Industrial Engineering at University of Lorraine (France) from 1991. His research interests include physical internet, localization, simulation and visible light communication. Email: [email protected]

Dong-Seong Kim

Dong-Seong Kim received his PhD degree in electrical and computer engineering from the Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 2003. From 1994 to 2003, he worked as a full-time researcher in ERC-ACI at Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. From March 2003 to February 2005, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Wireless Network Laboratory in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University, NY. From 2007 to 2009, he was a visiting professor with Department of Computer Science, University of California, Davis, CA. He is currently a director of Kit Convergence Research Institute and ICT Convergence Research Center (ITRC program) supported by Korean government at Kumoh National Institute of Technology. He is IEEE and ACM senior member. His current main research interests are real-time IoT, industrial wireless control network, networked embedded system and Fieldbus.