Logistics digitalization

The explosion of e-commerce

The birth of e-commerce goes back to the first e-transaction in history: the purchase of a Sting music CD ("Ten Summoners Tale") in 1994 on the first e-commerce website: Net Market. Since then, digital technologies and the Internet, smartphones, small and large online stores have shifted commerce from stores to online stores.

The e-commerce sales of products and services in France have reached 129 billion euros in 2021 with annual growth at over 15% per year. As a reminder, not so long ago, in the mid-1990s, there was no such thing as e-commerce.

Internationally, the figures are even more impressive with e-commerce sales reaching 5 trillion euros (twice the GDP of France) in 2021. E-commerce now represents 22% of global trade, with two main contributors: China, then the USA.

The supply chain transports and delivers purchased products to their recipients. This chain is complex, with many actors, professions and resources involved. It begins in the warehouses where the products are stored, it continues with transport by plane, truck or boat through intermediate hubs, and it ends with the "last mile", i.e. local delivery to the final recipient.

In France in 2021, e-commerce will represent 2 billion product deliveries. Worldwide, about 100 billion packages are sent per year, with an annual increase of more than 10%.

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Logistics companies are giants..

The parcel delivery industry is estimated to reach 343 billion USD worldwide in 2020. Some key players such as "express operators" are noteworthy :

Express carriers are companies that provide express transport, i.e. the rapid delivery of parcels and letters, typically within a few days, with worldwide coverage and their own logistics resources such as vehicles and hubs. The best known in France are Fedex, UPS, DHL, Chronopost and TNT.

To illustrate the size of the major players:

UPS, with a turnover of $100 billion, transported more than 5 billion packages in 2021, operates 572 aircraft and 125,000 vehicles in 2500 logistics centers. For its deliveries, Amazon received a bill of $11.3 billion from UPS in 2020...

For its part, Fedex delivered 4 billion packages in 2021, representing a turnover of $84 billion, with 700 aircraft and 210,000 vehicles.

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..they go green..

The ecological impact of logistics transport is necessarily major: Fedex has emitted 21.5 million m3 of CO2 in 2021 and used 93,000 tons of materials for packaging (cardboard + wedging).

Aware of these deficiencies, the major players in logistics are evolving. Some have set up a specific organization and created positions of "chief sustainability officer": Bolloré Logistics, Fedex... and have defined very ambitious objectives.

UPS 的目標是在 2040 年實現碳中和。Fedex 的目標是在 2050 年實現碳中和，投資 20 億美元，並在 2035 年實現 3 個中期戰略目標：

• 50% reduction in CO2 per package delivered
• 100% of facilities powered by renewable electricity
• 30% of the fuel used by its air fleet must be sustainable aviation fuel

It will remain to ensure that these ambitious goals are achievable. But expectations are real, 87% of French people are interested in a greener delivery method.

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...和數位化

這些公司在向數位和 4.0 倉庫轉型的過程中進行了重大變革：利用連接感測器的物聯網優化存貨、機械手臂、自導車、在人類中間運作的自主運輸工具、正在轉變為對所有供應商和客戶合作夥伴開放的 TMP（運輸管理平台）的 TMS（運輸管理系統）後端、高速輸送機、大數據優化、人工智能、運輸工具電氣化等。

現代化和生態責任的第一步是所有參與者都在進行的向電動車的轉換。

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包裝

另一個不容忽視的物流浪費是包裝。在絕大多數情況下，這些都是各種尺寸和形狀的紙箱，附有資訊標籤、氣泡膜等緩衝材料以及封口用的膠帶。這些紙箱基本、實用、便宜，而且只提供最低限度的服務。當然，這些箱子在形狀、強度、製造和回收流程上都有逐步改進......但這都是循序漸進的創新。時至今日，約有 64% 的紙板可回收再利用：這表示一張紙板平均只被重複使用 3 次。

我們可以補充說，能源和外交危機以及國際間對商品需求的增加對成本造成了強烈的影響。一年之內，紙板的價格上漲了 67%，膠布的價格上漲了 50%以上，氣泡膜的價格上漲了 25% 以上。而且紙板包裝只能重複使用 2 到 3 次，使用量仍然有限。

最後，我們只能驚訝於包裝這個物流元素幾乎沒有朝向數位化發展。更令人驚訝的是，包裝現在是完全數位化物流的缺失環節。

後勤人員本身並未識別或優先處理。而且架子上幾乎什麼都沒有。這種情況必須改變：LivingPackets 已經提供了一系列智慧型和可重複使用的包裝，以及許多非常創新的服務。對於專業人士來說，這是一個機會，可確保完全控制其物流貨運，同時參與 CSR（企業社會責任）方法，減少與物流相關的碳足跡。

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Jérôme Colin, Chief technical officer, Head of Innovation and Engineering at LivingPackets.