Data-Driven Design and Optimization for Smart Logistics Parks: Towards the Sustainable Development of the Steel Industry

Abstract

The design of steel logistics parks acts as fundamental infrastructure supporting the operations of storage, allocation, and distribution of steel products in the steel logistics industry, which actually lags behind the development of other logistics industries, such as e-commerce logistics, due to its large lot bulk storage, low turnover rate, and costly transportation and operations. This research proposes a data-driven approach for a specific steel logistics park, aiming to improve its operational efficiency in terms of product layout and allocation in multiple yards. The entry and delivery order data are analyzed comprehensively so as to determine the products with high operational frequency and the corresponding relevancy among them. Experimental results show that, among the 69 steel specifications, 14 high-frequency products are identified, and the correlation among the 14 identified high-frequency products possesses evident distribution characteristics concerning their brands and specifications. The identified frequency and correlation among various products can not only facilitate the product layout and allocation in steel logistics parks, but also advance the vehicle scheduling efficiency for product pick-up and delivery. Moreover, the research methodology and framework can provide managerial insights for other industries with mass data processing requirements.

The application of Industry 4.0 technologies in sustainable logistics: a systematic literature review (2012–2020) to explore future research opportunities

“…Combining cloud-based data collection, analytics, and optimization enables better communication and positioning of transport vehicles and more accurate prediction of their arrival time in order to optimize the docking slot and achieve just-in-sequence delivery (Barreto et al 2017;Ding et al 2020), through which good handing costs, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and truck drivers' working hours can be reduced. Lv et al (2020) investigated a data-driven optimization framework for improving the operational efficiency of yard management in steel logistics parks. With the help of smart sensors, AI-supported optimization can adjust the allocations and e-routes of goods and optimize the work assignments with real-time information of available spaces and resources (Munsamy et al 2020).…”

Assessment of Fog Enabled Sensor Cloud Platform for Smart Logistics Park

“…Sensor Cloud (SC) is the combination of the Internet of ings (IoT) and cloud computing [1,2], which can be widely used in the smart logistics park to promote the sharing of physical (wireless) sensors (PS) and reduce the redundant deployment of PS too [3]. SC is built on top of PSs and composed of virtual sensors (VSs) which are virtualized from PSs [4].…”