It has been shown that Milk Run and its integration into long-distance logistics leads to a substantial increase in economic efficiency and environmental benefits in the automotive industry. Milk Run is also expected to work in China, where a large number of cars will be produced in urban areas. We expect that the production technology and the logistic systems will not be very different from schemes which are currently being applied by the big players like Toyota. Extended e-kanban systems with electronic support from specialized software providers might form the heart of the JIT production system and synchronized logistics, which means that Milk Run could play an important role in the collection of parts in urban areas.
Apart from the automotive industry, the urban pick-up and delivery logistics of any parts, products and even waste could be organized in the form of Milk Run schemes using suitably equipped trucks of appropriate sizes. Milk runs help to minimize the vehicle-km necessary for regular sourcing or distribution processes and will therefore become a dominant logistics principle in developed and emerging countries including China, Brazil and India. While the principal idea of Milk Run remains invariant over time, there is a wide variety of options to adjust the scheme to regional production and demand patterns in each country, such that at the end of the day, a host of different Milk Run schemes are likely to emerge involving various stakeholders, types of public and private partnership, and links to global logistics networks.