Supply hubs in industrial parks (SHIP): research perspectives

Abstract

An industrial park is a cluster of enterprises located in one location to share common infrastructure, service and market opportunities. It has been adopted in many countries as an important tool for promoting the economic and industrial development. However, its further development has been impeded by the shortage of land resources especially for enterprises' construction of warehouses. The supply hub, having been employed by large suppliers to warehouse raw materials near manufacturers provides a promising way of solving such problem. In this paper, it is extended to "Supply Hub in Industrial Park (SHIP)" in the sense that warehouses of individual enterprises could be integrated into a single public warehouse and centrally serves the manufacturing processes of all the enterprises in an industrial park. Through the functioning of SHIP, it is expected that the land utilization and cost savings could be improved. As the initial study of SHIP, this paper focuses on several fundamental research perspectives: conceptual framework, working process, and potential benefits. Despite of the qualitative analysis, a mathematical model of SHIP is formulated. This work will contribute to the further research of logistics solutions in industrial parks.