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The food supply chain (FSC) challenges coupled with global disruptions, such as the recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak, exacerbate its vulnerability. The Internet of things (IoT) is one of the disruptive technologies being adopted in food supply chain management (FSCM). This study aims to address the challenges of IoT adoption in the FSC by systematically analyzing the prior pertinent literature.

A structured literature review was used to collate a list of peer-reviewed and relevant publications. A total of 72 out of 210 articles were selected for the final evaluation.

The literature review findings suggest five themes: technical, financial, social, operational, educational and governmental related challenges. A total of 15 challenges were devised from the review related literature of IoT adoption. The study concludes with future research recommendations for scholars and practical implications for practitioners.

While this study focuses on the overall FSC, further research should address other domains in the FSC such as cold supply chain, agriculture and perishable food to gain a better contextual understanding of the specific case.

The topic of IoT adoption in the FSCM is still considered emerging. Therefore, the present work contributes to the limited studies and documentation on the level of IoT implementation in the FSCM. This study should help organizations to assimilate how to adopt and manage the IoT application by addressing the factors and challenges presented in this research.

While several warehouses are now technologically equipped and smart, the implementation of real-time analytics in warehouse operations is scarcely reported in the literature. This study aims to develop a practical system for real-time analytics of process monitoring in an internet-of-things (IoT)-enabled smart warehouse environment.

A modified system development research process was used to carry out this research. A prototype system was developed that mimicked a case company’s actual warehouse operations in Indonesia’s manufacturing companies. The proposed system relied heavily on the utilization of IoT technologies, wireless internet connection and web services to keep track of the product movement to provide real-time access to critical warehousing activities, helping make better, faster and more informed decisions.

The proposed system in the presented case company increased real-time warehousing processes visibility for stakeholders at different management levels in their most convenient ways by developing visual representation to display crucial information. The numerical or textual data were converted into graphics for ease of understanding for stakeholders, including field operators. The key elements for the feasible implementation of the proposed model in an industrial area were discussed. They are strategic-level components, IoT-enabled warehouse environments, customized middleware settings, real-time processing software and visual dashboard configuration.

While this study shows a prototype-based implementation of actual warehouse operations in one of Indonesia’s manufacturing companies, the architectural requirements are applicable and extensible by other companies. In this sense, the research offers significant economic advantages by using customized middleware to avoid unnecessary waste brought by the off-the-shelves generic middleware, which is not entirely suitable for system development.

This research’s finding contributes to filling the gap in the limited body of knowledge of real-time analytics implementation in warehousing operations. This should encourage other researchers to enhance and develop the devised elements to enrich smart warehousing’s theoretical knowledge. Besides, the successful proof-of-concept implementation reported in this research would allow other companies to gain valuable insights and experiences.