Slow Logistics

Next Day, Next Morning, Same Day, Same Hour – customers are getting their orders faster and faster. Today high speed delivery based on accelerated logistical processes is a key competitive factor in distribution logistic, not only in the B2C-Sector. This speed, however, necessitate high use and waste of resources. It thus counteracts current efforts towards more sustainability in value-added processes. It also raises the question of whether speed or rather delivery reliability and sustainable using of resources will be the decisive criteria for customers in the future. Slow Logistics bears on these arguments. This concept breaks with the paradigm of speed in logistics without, however, impairing the economic efficiency. On the contrary, the conscious exploitation of existing time windows in logistical processes in product-specific supply chains combines the economic and social-ecological value added, so that robust systems will be created based on the accepted slowdown. This dissertation developed as first the theoretically fundament of Slow Logistics and describes detailed possible practical implementations. In addition, this book focuses on shipment consolidation as a central method of slow logistics. A comprehensive simulation study evaluate and analysis different strategies in the field of shipment consolidation to close some major research gaps and thereby generating valuable results and recommendations for implementations in business practice.