Alessandro Creazza

Order picking systems (OPS) must be redesigned in light of the evolving nature of modern warehousing to increase productivity and lower operating costs, as well as to consider the growing importance of social sustainability. The growing awareness of social issues drives organizations to demand sustainable business practices. Organizations can make informed decisions about adopting order picking technologies by understanding the interconnected sustainability benefits of automation. This study aims to examine how automation in order picking systems can contribute to social sustainability within warehouse operations. This study employed a bibliometric analysis to investigate order picking automation and social sustainability, letting the themes that characterize this research subject emerge. In addition, semi-structured interviews allowed us to determine the relationship between the two concepts. The results reveal that social sustainability within warehouse operations has been partially studied. However, it is perceived as a priority by logistics companies, which have to deal with the ageing of the population and the need to protect the well-being of operators in physically demanding activities. Studies on (order picking) automation technologies for improving the social sustainability of warehouse operations will become more prevalent in future research, especially concerning how technology can contribute to employee well-being, professionalism and safety. The contribution of this work lies in guiding warehouse management practices toward a socially sustainable model. Our findings contribute to the broader discourse on improving working conditions in logistics, reducing operational costs, and ultimately fostering a workplace aligned with social sustainability principles. This study lays the groundwork for further research and practical implementation in the fast-changing field of warehouse management.

Recognizing the complexity of UAV adoption as a sociotechnical phenomenon, the objective of this work is to understand the underlying dimensions contributing to the adoption of UAVs in middle-and last-mile logistics. A literature review identified several drivers influencing the adoption of UAVs in this sector. These factors include cost, service level, competitiveness, environmental impact, internal and external stakeholder management, process optimization, safety and security, infrastructural requirements, technological maturity, organizational culture, public acceptance, and regulatory environment. These drivers were systemically categorized according to the seven elements of the sociotechnical systems theory. An online questionnaire was distributed to a pool of experts among practitioners and academics who were asked to evaluate the influence of each driver on the adoption of UAVs. The data collected from this survey were analyzed through exploratory factor analysis to explore the relationships among the observed variables and identify the underlying factors that may influence UAV adoption. Following this first step, the thirteen drivers were reduced to four constructs, explaining 61.5% of the total variance. The first factor includes five drivers: competitiveness with a loading of 0.744, service level (0.702), infrastructural requirements (0.652), safety and security (0.608), and technological maturity (0.498). The second factor includes three drivers: public acceptance (0.851), regulatory environment (0.834), organizational culture (0.615), and environmental impact (0.495). The third factor includes three drivers: external (0.815) and internal (0.597) stakeholders' engagement. The fourth factor includes two drivers: cost (-0.749) and process optimization (0.457). The factor analysis confirmed the existence of underlying constructs that provide a comprehensive understanding of the drivers influencing UAV adoption in middle-and last-mile logistics from a sociotechnical perspective.

Resilience and sustainability are becoming increasingly vital in modern society. To facilitate the realization of these concepts, a multitude of Industry 4.0 technologies are available to support decision-makers. This study offers a comprehensive exploration of Blockchain Technology (BCT) and its seamless integration into supply chains. Employing a Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA), which combines bibliometric techniques with a traditional systematic literature review, we gain invaluable insights into the pivotal role of BCT in shaping resilient and sustainability-based supply chains. This research seeks to illuminate the transformative potential of BCT in contributing to a more environmentally conscious and resilient global economy. Our findings provide a thorough understanding of how theory is harnessed to assess and investigate this niche topic, highlighting BCT's potential to address key elements including supply chain design, supplier relationships, technology and information systems, inventory management, contingency and risk planning, triple bottom line considerations, corporate system dynamics, and geopolitical factors. The study summarizes the information proceeding towards a framework that answers how a resilient-sustainable supply chain can be created.

The transformations started with the advent of the paradigm of Industry 4.0 have also influenced the logistics sector, leading to the creation of the concept of Logistics 4.0 (i.e. the transformation from hardware-oriented logistics to software-oriented logistics empowered by digital competences). This new " vision " of logistics, initially championed by manufacturing companies, has recently taken hold also in the third-party logistics (3PL) industry, driven by the boost of the e-commerce market, the progressive diffusion of " disruptive technologies " (e.g. drones, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence) and the new challenges brought by exogenous factors (e.g. COVID-19), which push 3PL providers to go beyond their traditional focus and capabilities towards a digital transformation. However, it is still unclear how diffused the concept of Logistics 4.0 among 3PLs is and how its adoption takes place in this industry in terms of technologies, services and capabilities. A better understanding of the current situation of diffusion and adoption could help 3PL providers to assess their own position with respect to the concept of Logistics 4.0 and seize the opportunities offered by its adoption (e.g. higher efficiency, better visibility, improved service level, increased safety and security). For this reason, the paper develops a maturity framework to support 3PL providers in this sense and develops a road map to identify the areas in which invest to improve the logistics service offered to clients through a Logistics 4.0 approach. By means of an extensive literature review on Logistics 4.0 technologies and on maturity models, it was possible to develop a novel maturity framework that combines the dimensions of " Logistics 4.0 technological maturity " and level of adoption of technologies to ultimately lead to the identifications of potential services to be offered by 3PL providers.

Recent disastrous events and environmental risks have firmly recalled how resilience is an essential element for organizations to survive in today’s competitive scenario. However, increasing resilience through traditional approaches such as investing in extra capacity and resources is not always sustainable with respect to the declining availability of resources in the environment, also according to the Sustainable Development Goals, and in a general situation of erosion of the funding capacity of organizations. Accordingly, resilience and sustainability should be combined, but although the relationship between these two concepts in supply chains has been already explored, consensus on how to align their objectives is still missing. We posit that the sharing economy and its principles can represent a lever to combine resilience and sustainability through a better use of resources to be stretched and made adaptable in a sustainable way, laying the foundations of more resilient supply chains through better flexibility. In order to extend the current knowledge on this matter, we performed a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) combined with bibliometric network analysis techniques derived from the Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA) methodology, investigating the intersection between resilience, sustainability and sharing economy in the field of supply chain management. A strong connection between resilience and sustainability and between sustainability and sharing economy is confirmed by our analysis. Whereas the relationship between resilience and
sharing economy and the joint consideration of sustainable, resilient and sharing economy aspects are still unexplored by literature. The results of the review clarify the role of the sharing economy to empower more sustainable and resilient supply chains, providing useful insights for academics and practitioners and pave the way to future research in the field of sustainable and resilient supply chains.

Over the last 20 years, the demand for transport services has grown thanks to increasing globalization and e-commerce exponentially. This led to the rise in externalities (e.g., air pollution, climate change, noise pollution, traffic congestion), an issue that is particularly relevant in urban contexts. The improvement of last-mile delivery processes comes as a natural necessity. The considerable pressure on urban systems was further pushed by the outbreak of COVID-19, which highlighted the need for a delivery system able to provide a fast, resilient and safe contactless solution to reach isolated or quarantined areas with ease. To cope with the abovementioned issues, many authors have been looking toward adopting unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a. drones) in logistics. Therefore, this work aims to identify how drones can improve last-mile logistics resilience and sustainability and understand the impact of drones on urban distribution. The following research questions will be answered to achieve these objectives: Which applications of drones to urban distribution have been researched? What is the impact of drones on urban distribution in terms of resilience and sustainability? This paper follows a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach. The SLR was conducted on the Scopus database and is based on 159 articles. This literature review provides insights into the current state of drone-enhanced urban distribution scientific literature, finds existing gaps and suggests future research opportunities to develop a resilient and sustainable urban distribution system.

Purpose. Addressing logistics environmental sustainability is a big concern for practitioners and policymakers, and companies need to concretely turn sustainability into action by aligning green logistics practices with their corporate strategy. However, many companies struggle with achieving this alignment. We are experiencing an understanding into action conundrum characterised by a clear understanding of what should be done and why, but less clarity in terms of how to go about it. The purpose of this study is to explore how companies can effectively integrate logistics environmental sustainability into corporate strategies. Research Approach. We conducted multiple embedded case research, considering both logistics service providers (LSPs) and shippers active in the Italian context. Italy is one of the European countries with the highest traffic volumes, and forecasts suggest a further increase in logistics activities in the next few years. We selected 13 companies (including 6 LSPs and 7 shippers) which acknowledge sustainability as a strategic priority, and conducted semi-structured interviews to collect rich empirical data and elaborate the existing theory. Findings and Originality. A framework is proposed to describe the integration of logistics environmental sustainability into corporate strategy according to five main dimensions: degree of awareness, degree of formalisation, objectives and measurements systems, organisational structure and accountability, and budget allocation. Results highlight that companies seem more motivated by the need of aligning with regulations or by their willingness to obtain a green image, rather than by a genuine understanding of the actual need for sustainability. Research Impact. From an academic perspective, this study reviews previous contributions and collects empirical insights to foster our understanding about how to integrate environmental sustainability into corporate strategy in the logistics industry. It also offers a framework with quality descriptors to identify low, medium, or high performance with respect to the identified integration-related dimensions. Practical Impact. The study provides practitioners with insights that could support green logistics operationalisation, fostering the alignment between environmental targets and actual companies’ actions. Both perspectives of LSPs and shippers are illustrated and discussed. Findings could help companies shape their logistics environmental strategies, offering guidance to managers willing to innovate organisations and mitigate the negative environmental effects of logistics activities.

The Regional Logistics Index (RLI) is a regional level composite indicator that refers to logistics performance in terms of costs, competitiveness, accessibility and connectivity through road, rail, sea, and air transportation. This article compares the logistics performance of 5 regions i.e., Lombardy, Italy; Bayern, Germany; Catalonia, Spain, Ile de France; and West Netherlands, and provides guidance for future applications in other regions in the future. The RLI is built upon objective data and is steered by an Advisory Board of logisticians. The indicator is based on the use of secondary public data to ensure replicability of the index over time and across European regions, and it follows the for OECD/JRC methodology for the development of indicators. The results of the application of the RLI to the five European Logistics clusters present strengths and weaknesses of the analysed regions. For Lombardy, for example, the RLI shows several challenges, such as the scarce infrastructure, but also some strengths, such as high labour productivity and low labour costs. The RLI can motivate clusters policies, and support of national, regional and local policy and regulatory instruments to address the specific needs of the clusters. The future of the RLI is complement existing indicators, such as the Logistics Performance Index (LPI), for more complete logistics performance assessments, at national and regional levels.

As the demand for logistics outsourcing has grown over time, third-party logistics (3PL) providers need to find solutions to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded market. First, 3PL providers need to find a way that helps them to be attractive when they are presenting themselves to the marketplace. Second, they need to improve their customer retention. Adopting the theoretical lens of the Resource Based View (RBV) theory, one of the critical resources for 3PL providers consists of physical assets, which include warehouses. Notwithstanding the relevance of warehouses as key physical assets within the logistics processes, literature does not explore their importance as a source of competitive advantage for 3PL providers. To fill this gap, the present research aims to investigate the importance of the warehouse among the selection criteria used in the 3PL buying process to improve the 3PL’s attractiveness and the level of customer retention, taking into account the perspectives of 3PL providers and shippers in a dyadic relationship. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to collect perceptions and opinions from the participants in each dyadic relationship, and the selection criteria were ranked with the Best-Worst Method (BWM). Results show that warehouses have a limited importance in the 3PL buying process according to both 3PL providers and shippers. However, warehouses affect the 3PL evaluation indirectly due to their impact on the main selection criteria: ‘expertise and reputation’, ‘costs’ and ‘service quality’.