Tags:artificial intelligence, autonomous, last mile delivery, last mile distribution and literature review
Abstract:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is trending on almost every business field and new researches are being done day by day. Those who cannot adapt to Industry 4.0 will ultimately perish and AI will be an inseparable feature of this challenge. Customer demands increase each day with expanding e-commerce activities and slightest delay meets with customer dissatisfaction. Logistic companies face pressure to deliver increasing number of parcels while performing fast, cost efficient and environmentally friendly. Last mile delivery can be described as the last step for logistic journey which goods are taken from parcel hubs and transported to final consumers. It is known that this step covers majority of the logistics cost hence new solutions must be presented. In an era where the competition is among the supply chains, implementation of AI technologies into the last mile delivery process can improve success of overall operations therefore enhances customer’s quality perception. This paper aims to present an insight on last mile delivery and artificial intelligence usage as it is still considered as one of the biggest hurdle in logistic services. AI utilizations on last mile delivery are increasing considerably and companies are racing to gain technological competitive advantage through AI implementations. Therefore a detailed research is needed to grasp the current situation in the academic literature. To conduct a decent literature review, Scopus database is chosen and "artificial intelligence", "autonomous", "last mile delivery", "last mile distribution" and “last mile transportation" terms are searched across the database without time limitations. It is found that there are 65 documents related to the searched terms and oldest paper was published on 2011. Recorded papers are reviewed, classified and examined to find research gaps; to offer guidance on future researches.
Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Last Mile Delivery Operations: a Literature Review