[NB] What innovations in logistics will emerge by 2050?

If you’ve been following developments in warehousing and logistics in recent years, you’ll have noticed that the pace of innovation has been very high. New technology is developing at a rapid pace, and warehouses are becoming increasingly automated. In many ways, the warehouse of the future is already here, and at the same time, work continues to make the world of warehousing and logistics more innovative, more efficient and even better equipped to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

What new legislation, technologies and trends will impact the future of warehousing by 2050? How will these innovations affect your competitiveness and your current processes? In this article, you’ll get some predictions.

The future of warehousing in the context of urbanisation

The first challenge logistics companies face in the years ahead is to achieve zero net land degradation. EU climate legislation prevents new areas from being built on, regardless of the type of activity envisaged.

In Norway, too, it is a challenge that agricultural land is being degraded, which is why we have a Land Act. The purpose of the Land Act is to ensure that land resources in Norway are used in the best possible way for society, and there are strict rules for reorganising new areas. You can read more about this topic in this article.

The legislation will require warehouses to make the best possible use of space, for example by designing multi-storey buildings.

There is also a trend for warehouses to move closer to urban areas, and work is ongoing to develop more appropriate processes for delivering goods in cities. The goal of zero emissions combined with high efficiency is one of the reasons why warehouses are moving closer to consumers.

Towards more digitalisation in the warehouse

Digital logistics innovations, which are already underway in many warehouses, have a number of benefits. Digitalisation can help with complex logistics operations and management, limit human error, increase the productivity of logistics teams and make the supply chain more scalable.

To achieve such gains, a range of technologies are making their way into the warehouse of the future:

• Robots, which can be integrated into all stages of the supply chain: during replenishment, during order preparation and all the way through to dispatch of goods.
• Mechanisation. This supports logistics operators in warehouse management and picking, and enables greater traceability of products in the warehouse.
• The Internet of Things (IoT), which allows warehouse data to be collected and used in software solutions to help people work better and more efficiently. Several of these logistics innovations are already well established and utilised in innovative warehouses.

At RAJA’s distribution centre outside Paris, a number of digital innovations have been introduced, read more about this here.

Environment and logistics: a greener future

Logistics innovations also often aim to deliver an environmental benefit. In the future, companies will be forced to think more and more about their logistics and supply chain strategy in terms of environmental responsibility.

Legislation already sets requirements and will become increasingly stringent, and consumer expectations in this area will follow the same trend. The focus on environmental responsibility will affect a number of aspects of day-to-day logistics management, in particular:

• The design of warehouses, which will have to comply with increasingly advanced environmental standards (especially in terms of energy saving and sustainability).
• Order preparation and packaging, which already have and will increasingly have an impact on the environmentally responsible customer experience your customers expect. Here, packaging use is an important element, and to maximise your environmental responsibility, you should understand which eco-friendly packaging solutions are best suited to your products.

See a selection of RAJA’s eco-friendly products here.

The transport of your products, with freight transport needing to move towards zero-carbon.

These are factors that require today’s logistics organisation to review their processes to move towards green logistics.

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

The logistics sector has been facing recruitment issues for several years. Warehouse jobs are often seen as unattractive and have a bad reputation because they are seen as demanding and physically heavy.

In light of this, and with robotisation, mechanisation and automation set to increase, it is natural to ask what place people will have in the warehouse of the future. Will we see a drastic reduction in the number of people working in warehouses, and will people be replaced by technology?

Our prediction is that the warehouse of the future will have fewer employees, but there will always be a need for people. It will become increasingly important for logistics employers to make the warehouse an attractive place to work. This can be achieved by upgrading the competences of operators in the face of logistics innovations, and by offering good and safe working conditions.