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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate an original decision-support tool (DST) that aids 3PL managers to decide on the proper warehouse management system (WMS) customization. The aim of this tool is to address to the three main issues affecting such decision: the cost of the information sharing, the scarce visibility of the client’s data and the uncertainty of quantifying the return from investing into a WMS feature.

The tool behaves as a digital twin of a WMS. In addition, it incorporates a set of WMS’s features based both on heuristics and optimization techniques and uses simulation to perform what-if multi-scenario analyses of alternative management scenarios. In order to validate the effectiveness of the tool, its application to a real-world 3PL warehouse operating in the sector of biomedical products is illustrated.

The results of a simulation campaign along an observation horizon of ten months demonstrate how the tool supports the comparison of alternative scenarios with the as-is, thereby suggesting the most suitable WMS customization to adopt.

The tool supports 3PL managers in enhancing the efficiency of the operations and the fulfilling of the required service level, which is increasingly challenging given the large inventory mix and the variable clients portfolio that 3PLs have to manage. Particularly, the choice of the WMS customization that better perform with each business can be problematic, given the scarce information visibility of the provider on the client’s processes.

To the author’s knowledge, this paper is among the first to address a still uncovered gap of the warehousing literature by illustrating a DST that exploits optimization and simulation techniques to quantify the impacts of the information availability on the warehousing operations performance. As a second novel contribution, this tool enables to create a digital twin of a WMS and foresee the evolution of the warehouse’s performance over time.

This paper, with the tobacco industry as the background, establishes an indicator system for tobacco supply chain performance evaluation using the FAHP method.

Based on the relevant data of tobacco enterprises in Guangxi, the paper calculates the performance values of tobacco companies in various cities of Guangxi, and through the analysis of each indicator and the performance values of each city, the authors find that the improvement ability has a major impact on tobacco supply chain performance. Then, the paper establishes a system dynamics model to further demonstrate the impact of information digitalization on the performance of the tobacco supply chain in Guangxi, thus providing theoretical support for building digital tobacco logistics in Guangxi.

The findings of the study show that the performance of the tobacco supply chains in various cities of Guangxi is generally at the level of “Pass–Good,” which can barely meet the requirements of tobacco supply chain operation, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.

The authors show that digital and IT-based empowerment can maximize the performance of Guangxi's tobacco logistics performance.

The purpose of this work is to present an alternative way of considering evidence‐based librarianship (EBL) through an examination of the data that makes up studies used for EBL.

This piece starts with the standard evidence‐based librarianship definition and deconstructs it down to the level of the individual user, and that data is considered in a different context.

The bibliomining process, or the combination of data warehousing, data mining, and bibliometrics, is used as a framework to build a different path to EBL. Bibliomining‐based evidence‐based librarianship is not appropriate for all topics; however, when the artifacts of library use can be gathered and explored, this method can provide a different path to reach the goals of EBL.

As the quantity of studies needed for traditional EBL are not currently available, this alternate method provides a way to achieve the goals of EBL through data already in the library systems.

This paper aims to examine issues surrounding digital stewardship and information security with the digital library.

This paper is exploratory in nature.

This paper highlights areas in which there needs to be awareness of information security issues in order to protect patrons and library resources.

Information security is now everyone's business. Librarians who deal heavily in digital content must be active in their stewardship of digital library resources, both to preserve and protect potentially sensitive content, but also the privacy and confidentiality of the patrons.

It is hoped that everyone who has anything to do with the creation, maintenance, dissemination and preservation of digital content in the library context will take information security seriously. This paper is intended to be a primer for those who have not taken account of information security issues to begin doing so on an ongoing basis.

Aims to report on the 2004 Annual Conference of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST), which had the theme of Managing and Enhancing Information: Cultures and Conflicts. The conference was held in November in Providence, Rhode Island.

Reviews some of the events of the conference.

Finds that the hot topics of the conference were: Google, blogs, wikis, virtual reference and the Semantic Web.

A report that will be of interest to library and information management professionals.

With the overarching idea of disruptive technology and its effects on business, this paper focuses on how companies strategically consider meeting the challenge of a disruptive technology such as additive manufacturing. The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss changes in positions and roles related to the implementation of a disruptive technology.

Additive manufacturing could be expected to have different consequences for parties based on their current supply chain positions. The paper therefore investigates companies’ strategies related to various supply chain positions and does so by departing from a position and role point of view. Three business cases related to metal 3D printing - illustrating sub-suppliers, manufacturers and logistics firms - describe as many strategies. Data for the cases were collected through meetings, interviews, seminars and secondary data focusing on both current business activities related to additive manufacturing and scenarios for the future.

The companies attempted to defend their current positions, leading to new roles for them. This disconnects the change of roles from that of positions. The changed roles indicate that all parties, regardless of supply chain positions, would move into competing producing roles, thereby indicating how a disruptive technology may disrupt network structures based on companies’ attempts to defend their positions.

The paper contributes to previous research by reporting a disconnect between positions and roles among firms when disruption takes place. The paper further denotes how the investigated firms largely disregarded network consequences at the disruptive stage, caused by the introduction of additive manufacturing. The paper also contributes to research on additive manufacturing by including a business dimension and linking this to positions and roles.

Digital asset management as a technology for handling electronic material is used in different contexts for various technical purposes. Explores the effects of this technology on the marketing supply chain, being a new application area of digital asset management solutions. A conceptual framework is provided to describe marketing processes in the world of information technology and marketing communication logistics. Based on a literature review, possible benefits of digital asset management in this setting are presented. Anticipated benefits are evaluated in an indicative case study. The description of marketing supply chains leads to new insights for supply chain management.

The digital warehouse management system is an emergence that forms a critical part of the transformation of economic structure in Industry 4.0. In the present business scenario, the warehouse management system encounters a messy layout, poor damage control, unsatisfactory order management, lack of visibility and lack of technological interventions. Digital twin (DT) based warehouse system shows the ontology and knowledge graphs for competitive advantage by consolidating and transferring goods directly from an inbound supplier to an outbound customer on short notice and with no or limited storage. There remains a lack of clarity on how the DT can be implemented successfully in warehouse management.

The current literature remains largely unstructured and scattered due to a lack of a systematic approach to integrating the research implications and analysis. This paper probes the conceptualization of the DT with the help of theoretical analysis using the systematic literature analysis method.

The study explores essential concepts such as interoperability and integrability in implementing DT. Further, it analyzes the role of a supply chain control tower (SCCT) in modern supply chain management. A research framework is proposed for practitioners and academicians by incorporating the opportunities and challenges associated with DT implementation. The research findings are mainly threefold: Conceptualization of DT, Featuring SCCT and Exploration of cross-computer platform interfaces, scalability and maintenance strategies.

This study is among the first to analyze and review DT applications in warehouse management. Moreover, the study proposes a theoretical toolbox for the practitioners to successfully implement the DT in warehouse DT-based warehouse management system: A theoretical toolbox for future research and applications.

Organisations and industries are often looking for technologies that can accomplish multiple tasks, providing economic benefits and an edge over their competitors. In this context, drones have the potential to change many industries by making operations more efficient, safer and more economic. Therefore, this study investigates the use of drones as the next step in smart/digital warehouse management to determine their socio-economic benefits.

The study identifies various enablers impacting drone applications to improve inventory management, intra-logistics, inspections and surveillance in smart warehouses through a literature review, a test of concordance and the fuzzy Delphi method. Further, the graph theory matrix approach (GTMA) method was applied to ranking the enablers of drone application in smart/digital warehouses. In the subsequent phase, researchers investigated the relation between the drone application's performance and the enablers of drone adoption using logistic regression analysis under the TOE framework.

This study identifies inventory man agement, intra-logistics, inspections and surveillance are three major applications of drones in the smart warehousing. Further, nine enablers are identified for the adoption of drone in warehouse management. The findings suggest that operational effectiveness, compatibility of drone integration and quality/value offered are the most impactful enablers of drone adoption in warehouses. The logistic regression findings are useful for warehouse managers who are planning to adopt drones in a warehouse for efficient operations.

This study identifies the enablers of drone adoption in the smart and digital warehouse through the literature review and fuzzy Delphi. Therefore, some enablers may be overlooked during the identification process. In addition to this, the analysis is based on the opinion of the expert which might be influenced by their field of expertise.

By considering technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework warehousing companies identify the opportunities and challenges associated with using drones in a smart warehouse and develop strategies to integrate drones into their operations effectively.

This study proposes a TOE-based framework for the adoption of drones in warehouse management to improve the three prominent warehouse functions inventory management, intra-logistics, inspections and surveillance using the mixed-method.