[ESSEC Knowledge] by Claudia Archetti - Professor in Operations Research. She is member of the Operations Management & Operations Research (OMOR) Research Cluster.

With Ivana Ljubic and Laurent Alfandari

What are emerging technologies for urban and last-mile deliveries? 

How can optimization and AI-powered analytics help reduce the pollution & congestion caused by freight transportation in urban areas?

E-commerce has experienced exponential growth in the last few years. Recent statistics have shown that, while retail e-commerce sales were around 1 billion dollars in 2014, they are estimated to reach 5 billion dollars in 2021. While this represents a huge business opportunity for companies in almost all fields, it also raises dramatic issues in terms of managing the operations related to satisfying customer orders on time. In particular, focusing on the last leg of the supply chain, the e-commerce explosion has put a spotlight on last-mile delivery. In fact, customers are becoming more and more demanding in terms of delivery speed. On one hand, offering services like ‘same-day delivery’ or ‘delivery within the next day’ represents a prime opportunity for increasing revenues and obtaining customer loyalty. On the other hand, this means reducing consolidation opportunities and time for delivery planning.

[To read the full article please follow this link.]