In today’s economic climate, smart warehousing, as part of the 4PL cluster of services and operations, serve as a key source of competitive advantage for logistics providers who can deliver fast, cost-efficient, optimised and increasingly flexible warehousing operations for their customers. Among others, smart warehousing can enable the repair and improvement of warehousing equipment and information technology via harmonious communication among all the computer systems, mobile devices, machinery, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), and equipment on the warehouse floor. Critical components of the smart warehouse include cyber physical systems (CPS); artificial intelligence (AI); cloud computing services; Internet of Things (IoT); automated control platforms; voice picking technology; warehouse management systems (WMS); warehouse execution systems (WES) and collaborative robots.

Warehouses are crucial nodes in the supply chain management and manage a lot of important tasks like sorting, storage, and the shipment of goods. Their vulnerability against hackers is growing, as the current trend goes towards developing fully automated warehouses managed by a fully intelligent warehouse management system that relies on digital information exchange.

A cyber-attack on logistics operating systems (e.g., Expeditors cyber-attack, February 2022) can have significant and cascading impacts on various aspects of the supply chain business operations, such as shipping delays, market shortages and financial losses. Compromising inventory management systems can have a domino effect to the entire supply chain leading to issues such as wrong order placement, overstocking or stockouts. Warehouses handle sensitive information, including customer data and proprietary business information. A cyberattack that results in a data breach can lead to privacy concerns, legal consequences, and potential regulatory fines.

The smart warehouse computing continuum aims to create an interconnected and intelligent ecosystem that enhances operational efficiency, accuracy, and adaptability within warehouse environments. This integration of technologies across different layers of the computing continuum helps warehouses meet the demands of modern logistics and e-commerce. The challenges of smart warehousing are highlighted as the fulfilment and delivery operations of many supply chains are now dependent on high degrees of automation and analytics, this has increased the operational risks of cybercrime and hacking. Despite the explosive growth in devices capable of being connected to untrusted IoT networks, there are very few security standards that have been agreed. MEDIATE aims to orchestrate a synchronised collaboration among the multitude of nodes in the digitised warehouse domain, all uniting to combat cybersecurity threats.