This workshop marked our third Ideation Workshop since the Foundation’s start, reinforcing our goal to drive digitalisation and standardisation across logistics. Through collaborative sessions, our members continue to actively set the agenda for industry-wide improvements. The previous Ideation Workshop resulted in the launch of the Working Group Enabling Logistics Decarbonisation. This time, seven topics were raised and discussed, reflecting our members’ dedication to innovation and collaboration. We are excited to see what topics our members will prioritise and work on next.
“The Open Logistics Foundation Ideation Workshop 2024 was an inspiring mix of longstanding and new members, all motivated to collaborate on open source solutions,” shared Nathalie Böhning, our Innovations and Project Manager. “It was exciting to see the openness and commitment to creating impactful solutions together.”
Workshop highlights
For starters, the participants were divided into smaller groups of six to seven people, where they discussed and raised the topics that mattered to them. The groups were allocated randomly, ensuring interdisciplinary, cross-industry insights and diverse perspectives. Some questions the participants had to ask themselves to find suitable topics and common pain points included:
• Which existing (digital) standard processes in your organisation are cost-intensive and complex?
• What data or documents are causing you headaches and should be harmonised to enable interoperable solutions?
• What regulatory or legal requirements in logistics affect us all?
Participants had to share information and their ideas as concretely as possible for a better understanding of the whole group.
After brainstorming in groups, each team presented their ideas to the entire assembly, where the focus turned to topics with the highest commodity potential for collaborative solutions under the Foundation. Seven main topics emerged for further exploration during the day:
Dynamic time slot management: (Dynamic) Time Slot Management is crucial to optimise transport and efficient hub operations. The exchange of the needed information for planning, optimising and executing time slot management currently faces various limitations. The solution could cover several levels, including agreeing on a minimum data set for dynamic time slot management for booking directly from the TMS, standardising data exchange between TMS and on-board systems, harmonising and interpreting ETA/location data and addressing a use case for EU charging. These ideas could be based on using existing solutions as a reference.
Note: This topic was initially opened during last year’s Ideation Workshop and was reopened last week due to the high level of interest. You can find last year’s documentation on our Idea Board in GitLab in the “Empathise Stage” column (Timeslot Management #14).
Document Signing & Government Inspection: The digital signing and exchange of (legal) documents in logistics is a recurring task, but there is no harmonised solution. The idea is to use the already developed eSeals solution from the eCMR project for all kinds of documents. Therefore, the current problems of trust building, exchange of signer information and exchange of trusted public keys have to be solved.
Standardised minimum set of transport data: Transport information is even today mostly analogue or in structured documents (e.g. PDFs) and is hard to handle in an automated way or can get lost. In addition, equipment details that would improve efficiency and reduce costs are often missing in the existing documents. The idea is to standardise communication between carriers, terminals and shipping companies for loading and discharging, with a minimum set of standard data divided into general, breakbulk and bulk/loose material (one subset for each modality).
Standard Data Sharing Agreements (legal focus): Data sharing with authorities and other parties is often mandatory. However, there are currently often only bilateral individual agreements not based on a standard framework. The idea is to establish standard templates that define rules, roles with corresponding duties, obligations and rights. Alternatively, instead of a fixed standard template, a standard guideline for such agreements could be developed.
IoT Data exchange: Currently, no industry standard or common understanding exists between OEMs, equipment providers, traders and LSPs about vehicle or trailer-related data. The industry needs to move towards more standardised data (e.g. on current emissions, fuel consumption, and weight), independent from the OEM or provider. This needs to be driven by customer-side (e.g. the users of trailers and vehicles). Therefore, interest from LSPs needs to be collected to conduct a gap analysis and identify required data and information from a logistical point of view.
eInvoice standardisation for logistics: Open interfaces and data models will be needed for e-invoicing, which will become mandatory in Germany and additional countries from 2025 onward. The idea is to develop a common data standard for logistics that complies with all legal requirements.
Carrier compliance: There is a need for quality verification of drivers and companies, but a neutral platform, similar to credit rating systems, is missing. The idea is to enable standardised data exchange via a platform where companies exchange information on verified carriers, supported by a neutral accreditation instance that focuses only on verified successful transports while separating verification from rating information.
If you are interested in the documentation of the workshop sessions or would like to have an overview of all the ideas, please use this link to our Idea Board: Idea Collection.
Discussions and harvest
After the topic collection, the participants went deeper into the topics in two parallel sessions. During these sessions, participants decided on the topics they wanted to explore further. Open space principles were followed throughout the sessions, offering an open space to share and exchange in discussions.
We received a lot of positive feedback from the participants, who highlighted that it was a very inspiring environment for them. They also got a lot of insights from the exchanges, and they are looking forward to the outcomes from this workshop. Furthermore, the networking aspect was also enjoyed, with proposals for extending it with an after-work networking event next time.
Next steps
Which topics will be taken forward? That is up to our members. We are entirely member-driven. So, the members must decide and commit to a particular topic and inform the Head Office, who will then facilitate and coordinate the next steps, such as meetings to define the topic(s) with other interested members.
This workshop reaffirmed the power of collaboration in addressing industry challenges. We are grateful to our members for their proactive engagement and look forward to supporting their chosen topics that will drive progress across logistics. As our members decide on the next steps, we are committed to fostering an environment where open source solutions can flourish and drive positive change industry-wide.
