Smart Logistics

A large proportion of logistics is constituted by the transportation of goods. Logistics can be defined as the “planning, execution, and control of the procurement, movement, and stationing of personnel, material, and other resources” [1]. In other words, the challenge of logistics is the management of travel routes for transportation of goods and passengers, and of storage facilities. An optimization of logistics leads to savings in travel routes, travel times and travel costs and therefore also savings in CO2 emissions. Logistics globally account for a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions. As an example, in Australia the logistics and transport industry causes about 15 percent of total emissions annually, which can be numbered as 79 Mt of CO2e [2].

ICT systems can be used to improve transport routes and load planning, for example to minimize empty trucks [3]. This can be referred to as smart logistics, that “comprise a range of software and hardware tools that monitor, optimize and manage operations, which helps reduce the storage needed for inventory, fuel consumption, kilometers driven and frequency of vehicles traveling empty or partially loaded” [4]. By tapping the full potential of smart logistics 1.52 GtCO2 emissions could be saved by 2020 [4]. The set of features that ICT provides to optimize logistics and transport contains several innovations to the sector [2]:

• Logistics management systems: A general term for systems used to manage, control and optimize logistics, including several of the following functions to manage transportation, information, inventory and warehouses. 
• Automatic ordering systems: Orders and re-orders of resources and goods are automatically executed relating to demand, in order to optimize stocks and warehouse sizes. These systems avoid non-essential transport routes and reduce the need for oversized warehouses, which leads to lower greenhouse gas emissions caused by warehouse construction. 
• Mobile and wireless communication: These communication systems include voice communication of personnel, as well as the wireless exchange of field data (e.g. barcode scanning). The integration of mobile devices into the communication network allows real-time information exchange and therefore more flexibility. This brings advantages for route and load planning and the possibility to react to failures and delivery delays [5]. 
• Fuel and emissions control systems: ICT provides systems to collect, store and process data about fuel consumption of fleets of vehicles. These systems also support fuel cost analysis. Beside fuel consumption, the carbon emissions arising from fuel powered vehicles can be measured. This ensures the compliance to emission standards and enables the planning of service times of vehicles. 
• Vehicle tracking: The tracking of vehicles on transport routes is achieved by mobile and wireless networks and eases the centralized management of fleets. The vehicles of a fleet can be located due to positioning standards like GPS, which allows a more efficient usage of fleet resources. 
• Navigation systems: Mapping software in combination with positioning technology provides assistance for drivers of vehicles. Navigation systems diminish failures in travel routes and therefore decrease wasted time and fuel, as well as unnecessary emissions. 
• Real-time traffic monitoring and feedback systems: Information about the traffic situation in real-time enables re-planning of travel routes in respect of traffic flow. These systems help preventing delivery delays and inefficiencies due to traffic volume or construction work on traffic infrastructure. 
• Route planning: Systems that allow the creation of complex route plans for fleets, ensuring maximum efficiency of the combination of transport routes. 
• Freight matching and optimization: Freight matching is an approach to reduce travel ways of empty trucks [6]. As an example, there are several websites on the Internet where companies can post their freight that needs to be shipped to a specified location. Companies of the logistics sector can look up these information and offer the free load capacities of their vehicles. Many freight matching websites work in reverse too, meaning that logistics companies can inform about free capacities. In each case it is a win-win situation, providing a transportation service to companies with freight to ship and optimizing the loads of trucks, which also has a positive impact on the environment. 
• Ambient intelligence: This term generally specifies the effort of computing to make the ambiance of people more supporting and functional by integrating electronic equipment into everyday life [7]. In today’s road traffic ambient intelligence is represented by sensor networks used for Intelligent Transportation Systems (cf. section ITS), real-time traffic monitoring, navigation systems and wireless communication. In logistics all these technologies act as supporting systems and enable real-time information retrieval about route plans, traffic situation or order status. 

Logistics are both part of the transport sector and the industry sector. Beside transportation, the challenges of logistics are the management of inventory and other production factors. A common term in the context of logistics is supply chain management, which is described as an example for the possibilities of process automation in the industry & business section.

References 

[1] Business Dictionary. http://www.businessdictionary.com/. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[2] G. Philipson. Ict’s role in the low carbon economy. Technical report, Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), 2010.

[3] B. Metz. Controlling climate change. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

[4] The Climate Group. Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008.

[5] The Descartes Systems Group Inc. Business white paper: Wireless capabilities a must-have for fleet operators. http://www.descartes.com/resources/whitepapers/ds_wp_wireless_capabilities.pdf, May 2008. Accessed: 2012-01-03.

[6] posteverywhere.com. Definition of freight matching. http://www.posteverywhere.com/freight_matching.html. Accessed: 2013-02-12. 

[7] R. Harwig and E. Aarts. Ambient intelligence: invisible electronics emerging. In Interconnect Technology Conference, 2002. Proceedings of the IEEE 2002 International, pages 3 – 5, 2002.