A Study on the Advancement of Integrated Operational Systems through Applicability Analysis of Automation Solutions by Logistics Process Stage

The rapid growth of e-commerce has imposed increasing demands on logistics centers for higher throughput and greater service complexity, accelerating a paradigm shift from traditional storage-oriented operations to fulfillment-centered, value-added service systems. Consequently, automation has become an essential strategy for enhancing operational efficiency. However, existing studies have primarily focused on individual processes or the performance optimization of specific technologies, providing limited insights into the comparative applicability of automation solutions across different logistics process stages from a system-wide perspective. This study defines the operational processes of a logistics center into seven stages—receiving and inspection, storage, inventory management, order processing, picking, sorting and packing, and shipping—and classifies automation solutions into four functional technology domains: material handling, manipulation, flow control, and storage. Using a proposed process–technology matrix framework, the applicability of automation solutions at each process stage is analyzed, and the performance improvements of automated systems over manual operations are quantitatively evaluated based on key operational performance indicators. The results show that stage-specific automation leads to substantial operational improvements, including a 6–10-fold increase in picking productivity, approximately fourfold improvement in space utilization, and inventory accuracy levels approaching 99.9%. Beyond individual process optimization, this study highlights the importance of integrating physical and informational flows across processes and proposes a four-phase automation roadmap—information-based enhancement, bottleneck-oriented automation, structural redesign with fixed equipment investment, and integrated system optimization— tailored to logistics centers with varying scales and investment capacities. By providing a structured analytical framework and practical guidance for logistics center automation, this study contributes to the development of phased automation strategies and supports the design of next-generation integrated operational systems in the logistics industry.