Cloud computing is the latest computer industry buzzword that has spread into nearly every facet of life. In a nutshell, cloud computing borrows from the power industry or water utilities the concept that computing power can be supplied just as electricity or water. You can switch on the computing power whenever you need it. You can switch it off when you are done. You only pay for what you use. For many businesses, cloud computing brings the benefits of lowering information technology (IT) department cost and reducing maintenance and hardware/software update headaches.

Many data processing applications can be shifted to the cloud. What about logistics? Traditional logistics manages the movements and operations of every business from material to end products. Due to the proliferation of online shopping and B2B (business to business) or C2C (customers to customers) business, the logistics involved in satisfying customers’ demands and shipping products have become overwhelmingly important. Shifting logistics to the cloud could improve the efficiency and reduce the cost.

But shifting logistics to the cloud is still a complex task. This book introduces Logistics Mall, a cloud platform for logistics. It contains seven chapters. The first two chapters provide an overview of logistics including enterprise resource planning (ERP), warehouse management system (WMS), transportation management system (TMS), and supply chain management (SCM). Logistics Mall is also introduced. The next four chapters cover empirical qualitative analysis, IT architecture, business apps, and seamless interoperability for logistics and cloud computing. Finally, the last chapter outlines the challenges lying ahead for business process management in the cloud.

In general, this is a concise book introducing Logistics Mall, developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics in Germany. Porting and programming details are omitted perhaps due to space limitation. To really shift your logistics to cloud computing requires a lot of work. This book definitely is not the guide. Finally, the figure quality in the book needs a lot of improvement.