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Innovation in Land Transport - From Inception to Impact
Once a year, the Global Ventures and Innovation Department honors colleagues at DB SCHENKER who have shown themselves to be enthusiasts, supporters, and drivers of innovation with the Innovator of the Year award. Those who work closely together to shape the future of the company and industry.
Patric Hoffmann, heading Global Ventures & Innovation, had the honor of presenting the Innovator of the Year award to two outstanding winners - Cyrille Bonjean and Till Herberg, representing the DB SCHENKER European Land Transport team.
Innovators of the Year 2024
With their strong commitment towards innovation and the close cooperation with the Global Ventures & Innovation unit, Cyrille Bonjean and Till Herberg, together with their European Land Transport team, bring strategic foresight and operational expertise to the table – maximizing the chance of success throughout the entire innovation journey. From gathering insights and intelligence on trends and new developments, to early-stage validation of new technologies in the DB SCHENKER Enterprise Lab – plus joint pilots and collaborations with start-ups driven by the STARTup terminal team as well as the evaluation of potential new business models with the Schenker Ventures unit.
A successful innovation creates significant value by addressing a real need through fast and wide adoption and a sustainable benefit.
Innovation through collaboration
Together with researchers from Fraunhofer IML and Fraunhofer ISST, DB SCHENKER uses dedicated facilities in Dortmund to conceptualize, create, and test innovations that are modern solutions to challenges in logistics. The teams elevate ideas into prototypes, test, and refine them until a seamless transition to our business operations can be ensured. This successful partnership has thrived for over a decade and continues to drive our progress forward!
Today, technology-driven solutions coming from the Lab are being used in DB SCHENKER warehouses and terminals around the world. Beyond that, the Lab serves as a platform to connect with customers and suppliers. Through agile workshops, we exchange business needs and identify areas for joint development. Countless customers and suppliers have left our Lab visits feeling inspired.
Could computer vision manage our warehouses better than we do?
This is just one of the questions that led to a scalable solution at our collaborative innovation space at the Enterprise Lab. During manual warehouse processes, there is often a lack of information between shop floor workers and warehouse coordinators. Our answer: computer vision to bridge that gap. Pallet Vision uses artificial intelligence to track and optimize dock-to-stock cycle times. It creates transparency, with which bottlenecks and better streamline operations can be tackled.
The idea originated from our warehouse colleagues, who developed a prototype, tested and refined it until it was qualified as a scalable solution. Once ready for piloting, the new application was installed in one of the DB SCHENKER warehouses to detect and track all pallets in the inbound area, unlocking new potential in warehouse management. Read more about how the AI algorithm works.
The Terminal of the Future
What does the terminal of the future look like? How can we future-proof cross-dock terminals when facing a shortage of skilled workers?
Through regular interdisciplinary exchange formats with researchers from Fraunhofer institutes and DB SCHENKER logistics experts, automation technology for intralogistics pallet transportation turned out to be one of the key areas. Based on input from colleagues in the field who handle shipments every day, some of the most promising concepts have been tested, leading to an automated process that enhances intralogistics in our land terminals.
How did we get there?
The Fraunhofer researchers kicked off the project with market screening followed by professional test piloting at a DB SCHENKER branch. The STARTup terminal team actively supports the transfer process from the Lab to operationalization. With project management capabilities, the deployment phase was supported to ensure that the potential benefits are realized, and the solution can be handed over to the business unit.
In parallel, the (startup) ecosystem is continuously monitored to identify potential new providers for further scaling early on and to incorporate their approach into further planning. Knowledge transfer across BU and FU boundaries is also continuously carried out by the STARTup terminal and the entire innovation team to realize solution approaches that have already proven themselves elsewhere for the Terminal-of-the-Future concept.
The key to a successful innovation project is the right team, a clear business value, and to try out until you get there.