Quantifying the Impact of Physical Internet Systems Under Decentralized Control

The logistics crisis spread worldwide due to the imbalance between the supply shortage and the rise of fluctuating demands. Physical Internet (PI), the analogous of digital internet described as an open logistics network sharing assets and flow consolidation, is introduced to solve the inefficiency of transportation by providing high interconnectivity, standardization protocol, and decentralized management. This research comparatively investigates the performance of a supply chain under different network frameworks, namely, traditional supply network (TR) and PI system by using multi-agent simulation approach. Regarding to PI in particular, assuming the initial phase of PI implementation, decentralized control system has been adopted in which each PI participant pursues their own profitability like TR even though PIS participants share the resources such as warehouses and trucks in a supply chain. Simulation results showed that PI maintain significantly lower number of opportunity losses than TR, even in the system under decentralized control that are assumed to be in the initial phase of PI implementation.