The outbreak of an epidemic disease may pose significant treats to human beings and may further lead to a global crisis. In order to control the spread of an epidemic, the effective management of rapidly increased medical waste through establishing a temporary reverse logistics system is of vital importance. However, no research has been conducted with the focus on the design of an epidemic reverse logistics network for dealing with medical waste during epidemic outbreaks, which, if improperly treated, may accelerate disease spread and pose a significant risk for both medical staffs and patients. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel multi-objective multi-period mixed integer program for reverse logistics network design in epidemic outbreaks, which aims at determining the best locations of temporary facilities and the transportation strategies for effective management of the exponentially increased medical waste within a very short period. The application of the model is illustrated with a case study based on the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China. Even though the uncertainty of the future COVID-19 spread tendency is very high at the time of this research, several general policy recommendations can still be obtained based on computational experiments and quantitative analyses. Among other insights, the results suggest installing temporary incinerators may be an effective solution for managing the tremendous increase of medical waste during the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, but the location selection of these temporary incinerators is of significant importance. Due to the limitation on available data and knowledge at present stage, more real-world information are needed to assess the effectiveness of the current solution.

Background: Given the importance of human centricity, resilience, and sustainability, the emerging concept of Industry 5.0 has pushed forward the research frontier of the technology-focused Industry 4.0 to a smart and harmonious socio-economic transition driven by both humans and technologies, where the role of the human in the technological transformation is predominantly focused on. Several studies discuss the impacts of disruptive technologies on smart logistics operations in Industry 4.0. However, since Industry 5.0 is a new concept and still in its infancy, its implications for smart logistics have not been discussed. Methods: To fill this gap, this paper presents a comparative bibliometric analysis to show the connection and differences between Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 and their implications for smart logistics. A thorough content analysis is then given to illustrate the features of smart logistics in Industry 5.0 concerning four areas, namely intelligent automation, intelligent devices, intelligent systems, and intelligent materials. Results: The results show that, compared with Industry 4.0, the research of smart logistics in Industry 5.0 puts more focus on the interaction between humans and technology in the digital transition, with the increasing adoption of collaborative technologies, e.g., human-machine systems, collaborative robots, and human-robot collaboration. Conclusions: Finally, a research agenda is proposed for identifying future research directions of smart logistics in Industry 5.0.

Nowadays, the market competition becomes increasingly fierce due to diversified customer needs, stringent environmental requirements, and global competitors. One of the most important factors for companies to not only survive but also thrive in today’s competitive market is their logistics performance. This paper aims, through a systematic literature analysis of 115 papers from 2012 to 2020, at presenting quantitative insights and comprehensive overviews of the current and future research landscapes of sustainable logistics in the Industry 4.0 era. The results show that Industry 4.0 technologies provide opportunities for improving the economic efficiency, environmental performance, and social impact of logistics sectors. However, several challenges arise with this technological transformation, i.e., trade-offs among different sustainability indicators, unclear benefits, lifecycle environmental impact, inequity issues, and technology maturity. Thus, to better tackle the current research gaps, future suggestions are given to focus on the balance among different sustainability indicators through the entire lifecycle, human-centric technological transformation, system integration and digital twin, semi-autonomous transportation solutions, smart reverse logistics, and so forth.

Background: Systematic literature review (SLR) is increasingly utilized to maximize the element of rigor and minimize the individual bias of research synthesis. An analysis of the Web of Science (WoS) database indicates that 90% of the literature review studies using SLR have been published between 2012 and 2022. However, this progressive agenda is impaired by the lack of methodological consistency and rigorousness. To fill this gap, this paper aims at mapping the theoretical comprehension and practices of SLR and providing a stepwise approach to employing such a framework. Methods: A comprehensive narrative review is used in this paper to analyze the studies concerning the literature review typology and the structural assessment of the SLR. Furthermore, the methodological approach of the literature review studies that adopted the SLR and were published in the Logistics journal is assessed across a set of vital criteria associated with conducting an SLR. Results: There is a concrete link between the purpose of a review, i.e., to describe, test, extend, or critique, and the literature review type. There are 17 distinct literature review types, e.g., a narrative review, a bibliometric analysis, etc., which must be justified meticulously regardless of the SLR. The ambiguity in conceiving the SLR either as a toolkit or a review type, the lack of justification regarding the review purpose and type, and vague conceptual distinguishment between the bibliometric analysis, as a distinct review type, and the SLR framework, are only a few of the shortcomings observed in the analyzed papers. Conclusions: Given the significant role of SLR in elevating the element of rigor within the literature review studies, it is deemed essential to employ this framework by paying attention to two holistic factors: (1) theoretical distinction between the literature review purpose, the literature review type, and the SLR; (2) strict adherence to the SLR procedure with a high degree of accuracy and explicitness.

The recent advancement of digitalization and information and communication technology (ICT) has not only shifted the manufacturing paradigm towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution, namely Industry 4.0, but also provided opportunities for a smart logistics transformation. Despite studies have focused on improving the smartness, connectivity, and autonomy of isolated logistics operations with a primary focus on the forward channels, there is still a lack of a systematic conceptualization to guide the coming paradigm shift of reverse logistics, for instance, how “individualization” and “service innovation” should be interpreted in a smart reverse logistics context? To fill this gap, Reverse logistics 4.0 is defined, from a holistic perspective, in this paper to offer a systematic analysis of the technological impact of Industry 4.0 on reverse logistics. Based on the reported research and case studies from the literature, the conceptual framework of smart reverse logistics transformation is proposed to link Industry 4.0 enablers, smart service and operation transformation, and targeted sustainability goals. A smart reverse logistics architecture is also given to allow a high level of system integration enabled by intelligent devices and smart portals, autonomous robots, and advanced analytical tools, where the value of technological innovations can be exploited to solve various reverse logistics problems. Thus, the contribution of this research lies, through conceptual development, in presenting a clear roadmap and research agenda for the reverse logistics transformation in Industry 4.0.