Nils Boysen

About

Nils Boysen is a leading operations research scholar whose work sits at the intersection of logistics, warehousing, and last-mile delivery—fields that have grown dramatically in importance with the global rise of e-commerce. His research has fundamentally shaped how academics and practitioners think about modern distribution systems, from automated fulfillment centers to urban delivery networks. Boysen's most influential contributions include a landmark 2018 survey on e-commerce warehousing (628 citations) and a 2020 survey on last-mile delivery concepts (564 citations), both of which have become essential references for researchers navigating these rapidly evolving domains. His work on autonomous and robotic systems is particularly notable: he has examined truck-based delivery robots (279 citations), rack-moving mobile robots in KIVA-style warehouses (231 and 135 citations), and human-robot cooperation in order picking (40 citations), collectively advancing the operational understanding of warehouse automation. More recently, his explorations of drone logistics—including the imaginative "flying warehouse" piggyback transportation problem—signal his engagement with frontier technologies. Boysen's 2024 retrospective spanning fifty years of warehousing research further cements his role as a field synthesizer and historian. With thousands of cumulative citations, his body of work is indispensable reading for anyone studying supply chain optimization or smart logistics.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Warehousing in the e-commerce era: A survey

   628 citations · 2018
2. 2
   Last-mile delivery concepts: a survey from an operational research perspective

   564 citations · 2020
3. 3
   Scheduling last-mile deliveries with truck-based autonomous robots

   279 citations · 2018
4. 4
   Parts-to-picker based order processing in a rack-moving mobile robots environment

   231 citations · 2017
5. 5
   Storage Assignment with Rack-Moving Mobile Robots in KIVA Warehouses

   135 citations · 2018
6. 6
   50 years of warehousing research—An operations research perspective

   65 citations · 2024
7. 7
   The Piggyback Transportation Problem: Transporting drones launched from a flying warehouse

   48 citations · 2021
8. 8
   Human-Robot Cooperation: Coordinating Autonomous Mobile Robots and Human Order Pickers

   40 citations · 2023
9. 9
   A survey on the Traveling Salesman Problem and its variants in a warehousing context

   30 citations · 2024
10. 10
    A review of synchronization problems in parts-to-picker warehouses

    29 citations · 2022

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links