Exploring the maturity of Discrete-event simulation in logistics: is this a new research domain?

This paper explores the research area of discrete event simulation in logistics, with the final goal to infer whether this area has achieved the maturity of a new, stand-alone, research domain. Scientometric techniques, such as co-author analysis and topic analysis (keyword and co-occurrence mapping), supported by adequate software packages, as well as some statistical elaborations, were used to explore the evolution of research in time, so as to delineate the trend of this scientific field and to evaluate its current maturity. A representative sample of nearly 900 papers, retrieved from the Scopus database and expressively related to discrete event simulation and logistics, was used for the analysis. Results show that from the point of view of the contents covered, the research field appears to be sufficiently mature. Indeed, a sound quota of established topics was found among the themes treated; at the same time, a continuous introduction of unique new topics was observed, especially in recent times, thus denoting an expansion of the research field towards adjacent or interrelated areas. From the point of view of the collaborations among authors, instead, at present their number is still limited. Nonetheless, prospects are goods, as most of the relationships were established in the recent years; thus, they could be expected to increase in the future. Taken together, the outcomes of this study suggest that the topic of discrete event simulation in logistics is progressively acquiring scientific maturity and is expected to reach the status of autonomous research field in the future.