PHYSICAL INTERNET (PI): A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Background: The Physical Internet is a young concept. This term has existed since 2006. But since the last five years (from 2012 - world, from 2014 - Poland) this concept has been intensively discussed in theory and practice. Currently, two facts are diagnosed: small number of conferences and scientific articles and small number of project implementations. Accordingly, the Physical Internet could be treated as a pilot concept.

Material and methods: The aim of the paper is to review of scientific articles dedicated to Physical Internet topic (the authors’ article solely regards the physical aspects of the problem). Method of systematic review of literature was used. Systematic review of literature was divided into four steps: initial recognition of literature in PI topic, selection of publications in criteria of two streams: scientific and practice, analysis of content of publications and final conclusions. The analysis aims at identifying considerable articles in the Physical Internet topic area. The article has a fundamental influence on further concept shaping. The research time span includes scientific articles published in the years 2004 – 2017. The research subject was Web of Science and Scopus databases.

Results: As regards to the theoretical stream, the Scopus scientific database is a slightly larger source of the knowledge about the Physical Internet than Web of Science (number of articles, number of citations). From the point of view of ranking in citations, the Web of Science is better than Scopus (both old and new publications). As to the theorists, the most worldwide renowned (cited) people (Web of Science and Scopus) are: E. Ballot, B. Montreuil, S.L. Pan and  Y. Sallez.

Conclusions: One might distinguish two Physical Internet evolution phases from 2004 to 2017: years 2004 – 2012 (the Physical Internet occurrence, no interest in the concept and return to its thematic scope) - when the physical internet concept assumptions were developed and clarified and years 2013-2017 (renaissance of the Physical Internet as a future concept of efficient supply chain management) - when the concept was introduced (implemented) in logistic reality. The first period of the Physical Internet is characterised by the focus on its theoretical assumptions, the second one is characterised by the domination of presenting application and implementation solutions (pilot projects mainly with the case study status).