Investigating Warehousing Operations from an Integrated Supply-Chain and Transportation Approach

Transportation a primary step in the supply chain of goods. The responsive time between the parts of this chain may critically affect the duration of the processes. By accounting on an integrated system, warehouses can increase the accuracy and reliability of the processes. This paper analyzes the feasibility of integrated transportation and warehousing platforms from two points of view: infrastructure (e.g. physical place, geographical location) and organizational perspective (e.g. software, data, models). This paper contributes to fill the gap between practitioners and researchers about the needs of both systems. This paper found that transportation and warehousing are two inherently linked systems. However, the current practice lacks substantial improvements in data collection and modeling of these systems. Future directions point towards the use of big data and the implementation of econometric concepts (i.e. choice models), together with a spatial understanding of the impact of warehousing locations (i.e. accessibility concept) in transport costs. E-commerce, big data, and autonomous driving are the future challenges to integrating these two systems of warehousing and transportation. Finally, with the current pandemic of COVID-19, improving freight services is becoming a basic need. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the needs of integrating transportation and warehousing in the current challenging times.