This content will become publicly available on July 1, 2021
On-demand warehousing: main features and business models
Logistics and distribution need to be more responsive and flexible to satisfy changing and demanding customer requirements due to e-commerce and customization trends. This work focuses in particular on warehousing,
with the aim of understanding how emerging business models provide companies with additional ways to acquire warehouse space or fulfillment services. To do so, this work classifies and describes traditional warehouse models. Next, on-demand warehousing is analyzed as an emerging business-to-business (B2B) model that embraces the sharing economy principle of accessing resources rather than owning them. On-demand warehousing companies operate through online platforms connecting companies who have underutilized warehouses or fulfillment capacity to other ones searching for warehousing services. On-demand warehousing enables more flexible resource acquisition, as fixed cost investments are not necessary, and lengthy negotiations are eliminated through a standardized contract between
the on-demand platform and the renter. This work contributes to the literature through an improved understanding and description of the main features of on-demand warehousing, representing a starting point for further research on
this topic. Future developments are needed on the analysis of the main decisions a lender of space has to make when choosing an on-demand model.
- Award ID's:
- 1751801
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10171090
- Journal Name:
- XXV Summer School "Francsco Turco" - Industrial Systems Engineering
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
