Hans Quak, Elisah Van Kempen, Bernd Van Dijk and Frank Philipson |Self-organisation in parcel distribution – SOLiD’s first results.

To bridge the gap between the long(er) term Physical Internet vision and the short term daily logistics operations, the Dutch Topsector Logistics (TKI Dinalog and NWO) requested a research project that would provide an impulse for self-organizing logistics. This contribution discusses the development of the research project SOLiD, Self-Organizing Logistics in Distribution, that answers to that request. First of all, we describe the design and developments of SOLiD by discussing the challenges in the parcel industry and how these could benefit from implementing solutions that relate to a more self-organizing logistics system. Next, the first results of SOLiD’s experiments are presented. The experiments under consideration focus on dynamic planning and adding local intelligence to reduce handling activities. Lastly, we describe how autonomous sorting robots can be a means to achieve a more self-organizing logistics system. This paper provides new insights with respect to the considerations of designing, and the execution of practical experiments for implementing SOL as a step towards realizing the Physical Internet and make it more concrete for logistics industry.