The Open Logistics Foundation is focusing on a new subject area: As LOGISTIK HEUTE exclusively learned in advance at the transport logistic trade fair, a project dedicated to "Time Slot Management" on an open-source basis will now be a focus within the Working Group "Track & Trace". The time slot is traditionally a challenging topic, as Gerry Daalhuisen, Senior Director Dock & Yard / Fleet Products at Transporeon and Co-Lead of the Working Group "Track and Trace", explains: "The operator of a warehouse wants to receive goods within a certain period, which never exactly corresponds to the time when the carrier wants to deliver or pick them up," he says. Dynamic time slot management has repeatedly been mentioned as a desired topic in the idea generation process within the Working Group Track and Trace.
However, a common standard
to structure and use the associated data is still lacking for dynamic time slot management. This has resulted in isolated solutions that hinder efficiency, Daalhuisen notes: "If a carrier delivers or picks up shipments from 50 addresses daily, they may be dealing with 50 different underlying systems, which are often incompatible." The solution is now to be a standardized data model for Time Slot Management on an open-source basis, which 24 OLF member companies aim to jointly develop in the project. Logistics service providers such as Gebrüder Weiss, DB Schenker, and Rhenus are involved, as well as software providers like Blue Yonder, Zekju, TradeLink, or Transporeon (see complete list below). In addition to a time slot data model, the project group's agenda also includes communication protocols and negotiation algorithms.
Standards for a Complex Area
"One of our most
important products relates to Time Slot Management. So there is definitely a market, but it brings with it the described problems," Gerry Daalhuisen from Transporeon describes the company's motivation. "We have already had good experiences with the Open Logistics Foundation and appreciate the exchange with other companies, as well as the practical approach." This is lacking in other initiatives. "Time Slot Management is a very suitable topic for our approach, as it can only be solved together," says Nathalie Böhning, Innovation and Project Manager, who oversees the project from the Open Logistics Foundation's side. At the same time, the basic functionalities in time slot management are not competitive differentiators.
The project group is currently still at the beginning: A workshop for idea generation was followed by three online workshops to define the scope of the standard more precisely
and to find a common language: "We must, among other things, agree on what a 'Time Slot' is. Does it, for example, encompass half an hour or two? There are quite different views on that," explains Böhning. Many companies are prospectively interested in the use of artificial intelligence in time slot management, but first, the initial level of terminology must be clarified. At the end of the process, Böhning and Daalhuisen hope to see commodities, open-source accessible software components that are not competitive differentiators.
The "Time Slot Management" project group within the Working Group "Track & Trace" of the Open Logistics Foundation currently involves the following companies:
- Transporeon
- Blue Yonder
- Gebrüder Weiss
- Sitra
- Maven
- Logistics Cloud
- Translogica
- Zekju
- DB Schenker
- Rhenus
- CargoSign
- DSLV
- dbh Logistics
- Trans.eu
- Business Code
- Cargoledger
- GS1
- Collect + Go
- Iteratec
- Interface21
- LKW Walter
- Markant
