Decision Making in the Intelligent Distribution Centers of the Industry 4.0 Era: A Structural Approach

Decision Making in the Intelligent Distribution Centers of the Industry 4.0 Era: A Structural Approach

연구 분야: Databases

학회: Olympus International Conference on Supply Chains

Nowadays, the growing need for retailers to compete with their products across cost, quality and service dimensions on international markets has given rise to the need of developing more efficient and sustainable warehousing management strategies and processes. Traditional warehouses were designed to serve mainly one type of customers, usually stores, and at specific times during the day, while contemporary Distribution Centers (DCs) need to be able to serve all types of retail channels, such as e-commerce, stores and click-and-collect orders, that are received continuously within the day and have to be handled as soon as possible. Even though the topic of warehouse management and performance has attracted significant attention during the past decades, literature is mainly focused on facility location problems, inventory control and warehouse process design and management, with the emphasis being put on the load/material routing and order picking processes in the warehouse, due to them being demanding, labor intensive and costly. When it comes to decision making in DCs, be that operational or administrative, literature is rather limited. This paper provides the necessary focus on all the day-to-day issues that a DC director needs to come to terms with, in order to run DC operations successfully. In addition, these issues are addressed in the context of Industry 4.0, taking under consideration the managerial changes and organizational transformations that the emerging Industry 5.0 dictates or requires from contemporary DC management, which have the employee and the environment at the epicenter. The principal research question addressed in this paper, is how DC management can cope with these changes and effectively support the decision-making process with a structured set of planning, controlling, operational and administrative decisions. In that direction, this paper attempts to provide a set of guidelines and a proposed road map for DC management, which will effectively support the decision-making process in the warehouse of the Industry 4.0 era.