Framework for Smart Containers in the Physical Internet

In the context of the Physical Internet (PI), the PI-container with associated instrumentation (e.g., embedded communication, processing, identification…) can be considered as “smart”. The concept of “Smart PI-container (SPIC)” exploits the idea for a container to participate in the decision making processes that concern itself or other PI-containers. This paper outlines the necessity to develop a framework able to describe a collective of SPICs. After a quick survey of the existing typologies in the field of smart entities, a descriptive framework based on an enrichment of the Meyer typology is proposed. The proposed framework allows a description of the physical aspect (links among PI-containers) and of the informational aspect for a given function. Finally, for illustration purpose, the framework is tested on a collective of SPICs for a monitoring application.