Preparing for the smart cities: IoT enabled last-mile delivery

Abstract

UAE is among the fastest-growing e-commerce country in the Middle East, and this provides ample growth opportunity to the last mile parcel/courier delivery companies. Yet, the sector struggles to achieve its objective of providing exemplary customer satisfaction and minimizing the operating cost. This paper explores the challenges faced by the logistics companies engaged in the last mile delivery of e-commerce parcels. Firstly, in most countries of the Middle East including UAE there is” No descriptive delivery address “available, which means no postal codes or Zip codes of the final delivery point and secondly, most of the logistics provider still operate on legacy driven semi - digitized track & trace systems for the transportation and customer relation management. This leads to the poor last-mile delivery performance of the logistics provider ultimately impacting the e-commerce brand reputation. To increase efficiency, there is a need to embrace innovative technologies and integrate the supply chain key partners. Based on the exploratory study, we suggest a conceptual framework based on integrated technologies like GPS, IoT, and TMS which will provide the delivery operator with real-time visibility, reliability, and a smart last-mile solution. The unique three technology blend will provide full digitization of the core operations, seamless co-ordination with multiple sources, data-based decision making and real-time visibility.