 50 years of warehousing research—An operations research perspectiveNils Boysen and René de Koster European Journal of Operational Research, 2025, vol. 320, issue 3, 449-464 Abstract: Warehouses have always been an essential part of supply chains, but despite their fundamental role they were not seen as especially mission critical. With the advent of e-commerce, same-day deliveries, omni-channel retailing, and global supply chain disruptions, however, this assessment has changed, and today’s warehouses have evolved to technology-enriched fulfillment factories with strategic relevance. This paper traces the evolution of picker-to-parts and parts-to-picker warehouses from basic systems of the first generation, via extended system setups of the second generation, up to state-of-the-art robotized distribution centers of the third generation. Specifically, we highlight the most influential scientific contributions of the operations research (OR) community within each generation that have supported this evolution over the past 50 years. Beyond the historical perspective, we outline an agenda for the warehousing research of the future. Keywords: Logistics; Material handling; Warehousing; Operations research; Survey (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:320:y:2025:i:3:p:449-464 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2024.03.026 Access Statistics for this article European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier |
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