Recent challenges in Routing and Inventory Routing: E-commerce and last-mile delivery

In the e-commerce era, vendors have to satisfy a large number of on-line orders, mainly from private customers, with low weight and volume, reduced delivery time, and overlap of customers' time windows. Production is made available all day long. New strategies and new technologies are emerging for deliveries. The processing time of the orders is reduced. These new features generate interesting challenges in formulating and solving Routing and Inventory Routing problems. After discussing these features and the corresponding challenges, we recall the relevant literature in Routing and Inventory Routing and provide future research directions, mainly related to routing problems with release dates, routing problems with crowdshipping, and inventory routing problems in the e-commerce era.

Automated summary

In the e-commerce era, vendors are faced with challenges such as small order sizes, tight delivery timelines, and the need to cater to individual customer needs. New delivery strategies and technologies are emerging to meet these challenges, reducing order processing times along the way. These developments present interesting challenges in formulating and solving Routing and Inventory Routing problems.