Conceptualizing the physical internet: literature review, implications and directions for future research

The Physical Internet (PI) is a holistic Supply Chain Management (SCM) concept that merges many relevant areas of current SCM research, including sustainability, effectiveness and efficiency of global value chains, information flows, as well as horizontal and vertical collaboration. Given the increasing attention the PI is receiving from academics and practitioners — evidenced by a steadily growing number of publications, dedicated conferences and substantial funding opportunities — it is important to clearly define the domain, summarize current research and provide directions for future research. In this paper, we therefore present the state-of-the-art of the PI and highlight important research opportunities. The PI covers many different aspects of SCM, which can be seen as either a weakness or a strength of this concept. We believe that the latter is more pronounced and that valuable synergies can be achieved if SCM researchers keep the ‘big picture’ in mind, which in this case is the optimization of the total supply chain, including all participating companies, third parties and externalities. We conduct a systematic literature review and work out the most important components, performance indicators, goals, opportunities and challenges of the PI, which supports future incremental and rigorous research. We also provide several important directions for future research.