Assessing last-mile distribution resilience under demand disruptions. (April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pahwa, Anmol; Jaller, Miguel
• Is Part Of: Transportation research. Volume 172(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-04
• Subjects: COVID-19 -- Last-mile -- Resilience -- Crowdsourcing -- Collection-point -- Micro-hub; Logistics -- Periodicals; Transportation -- Periodicals; 388.011
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tre.2023.103066
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1366-5545

Abstract

Highlights: The study develops novel resilience framework to assess last-mile resilience. The results show opportunities and challenges with different outsourcing channels. Crowdsourcing provides flexible service contingent on driver availability. Collection-point pickup renders high capacity contingent on customer willingness. Logistics service providers offer reliable service but at high distribution costs. Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant breakdown of the traditional retail sector resulting in an unprecedented surge in e-commerce demand for the delivery of essential goods. Consequently, the pandemic raised concerns pertaining to e-retailers' ability to maintain and efficiently restore level of service in the event of such low-probability high-severity market disruptions. Thus, considering e-retailers' role in the supply of essential goods, this study assesses the resilience of last-mile distribution operations under disruptions by integrating a Continuous Approximation (CA) based last-mile distribution model, the resilience triangle concept, and the Robustness, Redundancy, Resourcefulness, and Rapidity (R4) resilience framework. The proposed R4 Last Mile Distribution Resilience Triangle Framework is a novel performance-based qualitative-cum-quantitative domain-agnostic framework. Through a set of empirical analyses, this study highlights the opportunities and challenges of different distribution/outsourcing strategies to cope with disruption. In particular, the authors analyzed the use of an independent crowdsourced fleet (flexible service contingent on driver availability); the use of collection-point pickup (unconstrained downstream capacity contingent on customer willingness to self-collect); and integration with a logistics service provider (reliable service with high distribution costs). Overall, this work recommends the e-retailers to create a suitable platform to ensure reliable crowdsourced deliveries, position sufficient collection-points to ensure customer willingness to self-collect, and negotiate contracts with several logistics service providers to ensure adequate backup distribution.