EXPLORING THE TREND OF THE RESEARCH ON LOGISTICS 4.0

Background: As a result of the Industry 4.0 revolution, the Logistics 4.0 concept emerged, changed the already adopted solutions in traditional logistics, and introduced new enabling technologies. As Logistics 4.0 is a relatively new term and considering the emerging literature on these topics, the goal of this study is to identify the main research areas, understand the current state of development, and recommend potential future directions.

Methods: A bibliometric analysis of 181 scientific publications available in the Web of Science core collection database, dealing with the Logistics 4.0 research area and published between 2013 and early 2023 was performed. The analysis was carried out using VOSviewer software. Several bibliometric parameters were analyzed, such as year of publication, paper type, research area, distribution of articles by countries, language of publications, keyword and citation analysis, and most productive authors and organizations.

Results: The results of the study show that in the period from 2013 until early 2023 there were 181 publications produced on Logistics 4.0, published mostly in English, by a total of 200 authors from 41 different countries. Additionally, it was revealed that the main research areas in the field of Logistics 4.0 include supply chain visibility and transparency, IoT applications, big data analytics, AI and ML algorithms, robotics and automation technologies, blockchain technologies, and sustainability in logistics. These research areas represent key focus areas in the context of advancing logistics operations and optimizing supply chain management.

Conclusions: The results reinforce the main trends of the topic and provide an indication for future research. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of few attempts to investigate Logistics 4.0 research using a bibliometric analysis based on articles published in the past decade.