Agile methods used by traditional logistics companies and logistics start-ups: a systematic literature review

An increasing number of companies and start-ups aims to enhance their agility through the use of agile methods and practices in order to cope with raising product development and project complexity and quickly changing requirements (Laanti et al. (2011); Schön et al. (2017); Könnölä et al. (2016)). Especially in the logistics industry, which is known as a slow adaptor to changes in general but regarding new innovations in particular (Cockburn and Highsmith (2001); Beck (2000); Abbas et al. (2008)), it is relevant to see how these companies cope with change. Opposed to that, logistics start-ups seem to be able to create customer value with disruptive products and services. This paper aims to capture the current state of the literature related to the use of agile methods and practices in established logistics companies and logistics start-ups. Of particular interest will be analyzing which methods and practices are used, what specific challenges established logistics companies and logistics start-ups aim to solve with these agile methods and practices, and the difficulties they face in doing so. A systematic literature review (SLR) with an extensive quality assessment of the included nine studies was conducted. After the analysis, insights on the following points were derived: use of agile methods and practices, the challenges that are solved with these methods and practices, and difficulties in the application of these methods and practices. Future research should deepen these findings with, for instance, qualitative data from real-life cases of logistics companies and start-ups. The originality of the SLR presented lies in its contribution to the largely unexplored field of agility in traditional logistics companies and logistics start-ups, as well as its assessment of the state-of-the-art literature analyzed. •Few papers investigate the use of agile methods in the logistics industry.•Established logistics companies mainly use agile methods such as Scrum and XP.•Concepts such as supply chain/business agility are used in a supportive manner.•Agile methods improve customer satisfaction, processes and communication.•Difficulties are related to the product design and the team’s mindset.