In a new study, recently published online in Production and Operations Management, three faculty members from the Naveen Jindal School of Management explored how drone delivery could change retail logistics networks. In other words, last-mile delivery networks will become more decentralized, with drones operating at increasingly faster speeds. “If a retailer promises each customer a different delivery time based on the customer’s location, that would be perfect customization,” Dawande said. The researchers noted that further research is needed into how last-mile delivery capacity might be allocated between drones and traditional approaches such as delivery trucks. On the one hand, drone delivery can enable fast delivery times and minimize the cost of human labor by using dedicated aerial vehicles that fly directly from a delivery center to the customer’s location.