Physical Internet towards sustainable supply chain: The significance of digital interoperability

The purpose of this study is to discover physical internet attributes for satisfying economic, social, and environmental benefits, and frame the hierarchical interrelationships of these attributes. The fuzzy Delphi method is used to define necessary criteria; fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory is adopted to identify the cause-and-effect relationships based on the experts’ viewpoints. Finding - The result also presents the most important criteria having causal effects on others including privacy preservation approaches, system of logistics network interconnectivity, distributed data storage, real-time locating system, and distributed multi-segment intermodal transport, from which recommend practical implications for the decision-making process. This study suggests both theoretical and managerial implications for improving the physical internet towards sustainable supply chain as physical internet has been perceived as a novel logistics model towards sustainability and a key solution for the current paradigms to overcome sustainable issues. This study contributes to the literature by pointing out the causal aspects for physical internet implementation, which are digital interoperability of supply chain, and shared warehouse and transportation networks.