[FR] What logistical innovations can you expect between now and 2050?

If you’ve ever taken an interest in the logistics innovations that have emerged on the market in recent years, you’ll no doubt have the impression that you’re living in a world worthy of science fiction.

And yet, the warehouse of the future is already here – many specialists are already working to make it more innovative, more efficient, more powerful, to meet the logistics challenges of tomorrow.

What new legislation, technologies and trends will affect the warehouse of the future by 2050? How will these innovations affect your competitiveness and your current processes?

These are the answers to our white paper “What will the warehouse of the future look like?”, which we created in partnership with transport and logistics experts.

Find out here about the major trends that will shape your warehouse of the future, and get ready for them now!

The warehouse of the future at the heart of urban issues

The first challenge facing logistics companies in the years ahead is to achieve zero net land artificialisation. Under the Climate and Resilience Act, this means that no new areas can be built on, regardless of the type of activity envisaged.

This paradigm shift will require warehouses to rethink how they organise themselves, in particular by thinking about how to make the best use of the space available, by designing multi-level buildings.

Another urban issue that will affect logistics is the fact that warehouses are moving ever closer to urban areas. Hence the need for logistics services to develop an appropriate zero-carbon urban delivery strategy, particularly for last-mile logistics that bring consumers and storage areas closer together.

Towards more digital warehousing

Digital logistics innovations, already underway in some warehouses, have a number of aims. They aim to reduce the arduousness of logistics operations and handling, limit human error, increase the productivity of logistics teams, and make the supply chain more scalable.

To achieve this, a number of technologies are making their way into the warehouse of the future:

• RobotsRobots, which can be integrated into all phases of the supply chain: upstream during stock replenishment, during order preparation, and right through to dispatch of goods.
• MechanisationThis provides support to logistics operators in stock management and picking, and enables greater traceability of products in the warehouse.
• The Internet of Things (IoT), which enables warehouse data to be collected and used in software solutions to help people work better and more efficiently.

Some of these logistics innovations are already well established and being deployed in innovative warehouses. Find out which ones in our white paper!

Environment & logistics: a greener future

Logistics innovations of all kinds do not necessarily mean ignoring the environment – on the contrary!

In the future, companies will be forced to think more and more about their logistics and supply chain strategy in terms of eco-responsibility. Legislation, some of which is already in force, will become stricter, and consumer expectations in this area will follow the same trend.

This concern for eco-responsibility will affect a number of aspects of day-to-day logistics management, in particular :

• The design of warehouses themselves, which will have to comply with increasingly advanced environmental standards (particularly in terms of energy savings and sustainability).
• ≥ order preparation and packaging, which already have and will increasingly have an impact on the eco-responsible customer experience your customers expect.
• The transportation of your products, with goods transport having to move towards zero-carbon.

These are all factors that require the current logistics organisation to rethink its processes in depth, in order to move towards green logistics.

What role will people play in the warehouse of the future?

For several years now, the logistics sector has been facing recruitment problems. These jobs are seen as unattractive, and suffer from a negative image, because they are seen as arduous and demanding.

Against this backdrop, and with robotisation, mechanisation and automation set to gain in strength, it’s only logical to ask what place humans will have in the warehouse of the future. Will the logistics function see a drastic reduction in the number of people working in warehouses, in favour of technology?

The experts interviewed in our white paper are categorical: the warehouse will have fewer humans, but it will also be more human. The challenge for supply chain management specialists is therefore to make the warehouse of the future attractive, by upgrading the skills of operators in the face of logistics innovations, and by offering them working conditions geared towards “well-being at work”.

Would you like to discover all the logistics innovations in the warehouse of the future?

In the white paper “What will the warehouse of the future look like?”, experts in robotics, automation, digitalisation, eco-responsibility and urban issues share their visions of logistics innovations up to 2050.

Find out what’s in store and how to prepare,
download the white paper now!