Risk assessment of cold chain logistics in intelligent and connected environment

Intelligent and connected environments, in which Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and digital twins are integrated, are the core technologies of future cold chain logistics. In this research, Analytical Hierarchy process (AHP) method is applied to conduct risk assessment of cold chain logistics. Furthermore, this research identifies a risk index hierarchical structure of cold chain logistics in intelligent and connected environments, with Layer 1 indexes including actual operational risk, IoT device risk, blockchain application risk, digital twins application risk, and management and guarantee risk; Layer 2 indexes including low transportation timeliness, low storage and preservation capacity, low delivery timeliness, sensor device failure, actuator device failure, communication device failure, inappropriate amount of data, inappropriate data collection frequency, difficulty in fusing heterogeneous data from multiple sources, unclear ownership of data, unclear openness of data, lack of unified data standard, lack of unified model standard, insufficient representativeness of simulation models, failure to update simulation models in time, security system vulnerabilities, imperfect management systems, lax enforcement of management regulations. This research contacted 11 experts to score the judgment matrix in AHP method, and then calculated the weights corresponding to each index to analyze the key risk that need to be focused on.