Smart box-enabled product–service system for cloud logistics
针对物流行业缺乏共享、标准化和环保包装等问题，结合物理互联网、产品服务系统和云计算，设计了绿色可回收智能箱，并构建云物流平台，通过聚类分析优化物流任务分配，降低成本和污染。
Modern logistics takes significant progress and rapid developments with the prosperity of E-commerce, particularly in China. Typical challenges that logistics industry is facing now are composed by a lack of sharing, standard, cost-effective and environmental package and efficient optimisation method for logistics tasks distribution. As a result, it is difficult to implement green, sustainable logistics services. Three important technologies, Physical Internet (PI), product–service system (PSS) and cloud computing (CC), are adopted and developed to address the above issues. PI is extended to design a world-standard green recyclable smart box that is used to encapsulate goods. Smart box-enabled PSS is constructed to provide an innovative sustainable green logistics service, and high-quality packaging, as well as reduce logistics cost and environmental pollution. A real-time information-driven logistics tasks optimisation method is constructed by designing a cloud logistics platform based on CC. On this platform, a hierarchical tree-structure network for customer orders (COs) is built up to achieve the order-box matching of function. Then, a distance clustering analysis algorithm is presented to group and form the optimal clustering results for all COs, and a real-time information-driven optimisation method for logistics orders is proposed to minimise the unused volume of containers. Finally, a case study is simulated to demonstrate the efficiency and feasibility of proposed cloud logistics optimisation method.