Open source is integral to the technological endeavors of any organisation or enterprise that
aspires to play successfully in the digital arena. The emergence of revolutionary innovations such as cloud, IoT, Big Data, or AI are inconceivable without open source. Although the idea itself has long been known in freight forwarding and logistics, as it already started to revolutionise the industry decades ago, the right mindset is what makes the difference.
Digitalisation has simplified customs clearance in many areas, especially in the declaration of imports and exports. However, various data discontinuities and queries continue to unnecessarily delay cross-border process flows. In the latest issue of the World Customs Organization, WCO News magazine, Open Customs Blockchain Working Group Leads Roman Koller and Michael Douglas take stock of blockchain initiatives to date and explain why Open Logistics Foundation’s open source approach could make all the difference.
For the 2023 Digital Logistics Award, Open Logistics Foundation is one of the sponsors. The Digital Logistics Award, is one of the most important awards for start-ups in logistics, recognising and promoting creative business solutions for the digital working world in logistics. In this article, Maria Beck, the CEO of Digital Hub Management / Digital Hub Logistics elaborates further on why this is an opportunity to be seized by startups.
When it comes to generating ideas for new projects, the Open Logistics Foundation uses the concept of open ideation. It goes like this: In workshops, experts from companies that are part of the Innovation Community jointly develop topics regarding open source solutions they want to work on next. And so it happened also in the most recent workshop held in August, which was hosted by Rhenus Logistics. In the following article, two innovation coaches will be elaborating on the concept.
Companies can use the standard components from the Open Logistics repository as a basis for the development and commercialisation of non-open extensions and services. The the Open Logistics Foundation has created the legal framework for this with a so-called permissive licence modelled on the Apache 2.0 licence. CEO Andreas Nettsträter explains the characteristics.
No use of open source software? That is no longer imaginable in most companies. The Bitkom Open Source Monitor 2021 concludes that 71 percent of all companies in Germany already use OS. The approach is also interesting for logistics and supply chain management. A talk with Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Michael Henke, Director of the Fraunhofer IML.
Open-source over classic collaboration: Companies such as Dachser, DB Schenker, duisport and Rhenus want to use the Open Logistics Foundation to advance the interests of all – they do not believe digitalization can be achieved in isolation. Stefan Hohm, CDO at Dachser SE, shares his thoughts.