1. Logistics in the Cloud:
The future of supply chain management
Prof. Dr. J. Rod Franklin, P.E.
Vice President, Product Development
Kuehne + Nagel Management AG
Adjunct Professor of Logistics
The Kuehne Logistics University

2. Agenda
• The Current State
• Collaboration issues
• Key requirements
• How?
• Cloud Logistics
• Cloud Computing – a quick overview
• Logistics in the Cloud
• The FInest Project
• FInest and Cloud Logistics
• Project Motivation
• The FInest Consortium
• Core Modules
• Envisioned Service
• Supply Chain Management in the Cloud – An example
• Summary and Questions
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3. Collaboration Issues
Pressing problems
 Limited visibility of T&L
processes and critical events
hampers business network
efficiency and effectiveness
 Closed logistic supply chains
hinder agile inter-
organizational information
exchange and collaboration
and access
 Highly manual processes are
employed to address a lack of
standards, legal and
governmental
regulations, contract
management and poor
integration between partners
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4. Key Requirements
Requirement 1
Efficient support for inter-organizational
collaboration and contracting in
cooperative business networks
Requirement 2
Seamless integration of information and
data along with real-world data acquisition
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5. But how?
Project Motivation
• Existing ICT solutions insufficient to dynamically establish
collaborative T&L networks, leading to closed supply chains
• Closed supply chains disadvantages SMEs in participating in large
collaborative T&L networks
• Limited visibility on T&L processes and critical events, as well as lack
of global standards for information exchange hampers business
network efficiency and effectiveness
Future Internet +
Generic Enablers
• Project Aims
• Build Collaboration & Integration Platform for international T&L
networks, by exploiting generic enablers of the Future Internet Core
Platform
• Preparing for the demonstration and evaluation in large-scale trials
with real-world use case scenarios
Domain-specific Capabilities for
• Efficient inter-organizational collaboration in cooperative business
networks that operate in agile and dynamic environments and
involve a multitude of stakeholders
• Seamless integration of information and data in heterogeneous IT
landscapes along with embedded facilities for real-world data
acquisition and integration 5

6. Cloud Logistics
• To understand what cloud logistics is you need to
understand cloud based computing
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7. Cloud Logistics
• Cloud computing can be defined as Cloud Computing Explained
follows:
• An approach to computing that provides
computation, software, data access, and
storage services that do not require end-
user knowledge of the physical location and
configuration of the system that delivers
the services. Parallels to this concept can be
drawn with the electricity grid, wherein
end-users consume power without needing
to understand the component devices or
infrastructure required to provide the
service.
Source: Wikipedia
• The benefits of this approach are:
• Scalability
• Flexibility
• Cost
• Maintenance
Infrastructure as a Service: hosted hardware and management
• Integration services for the physical components needed to run
• Virtualization (device location applications
Platform as a Service: facilities for developing and deploying
independence)
cloud based applications
Software as a Service: cloud based business applications
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8. Cloud Logistics
• Cloud logistics is simply the use of cloud based logistics
applications and information management services to manage
supply chains
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9. The FInest Project
• FInest is a cloud logistics project based on the use of
Future Internet services
• FInest addresses current transport and logistics
issues associated with:
• Collaboration
• Integration
• Visibility
• Planning
• Contracting
• Sense and respond (proactive event management)
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10. Consortium
11 partners, 6 countries, 2 SMEs, 1 public body
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11. FInest Core Modules
•Global view & coordination of logistics processes
Business
•Service-oriented inter-organizational collaboration
Collaboration
manager, targeted to different T&L stakeholders
•Semi-automated e-contract selection and management
eContracting •Creation of more dynamic marketplaces to seamless support e-
contracting (e.g., spot contracting)
•Event-driven monitoring, across domains & modality, providing
Proactive Event end-to-end visibility of logistic processes
Monitoring •Proactive event processing driven by contract management and
transport planning & triggering transport re-planning
Transport (Re-) •Dynamic transport (re-)planning facilities, automatically
Planning exploiting real-world data

12. Envisioned Service
Web Mobile Email
Front-End
FI PPP Core Platform
T&L Service-based Communication Layer
Collaboration
& Integration Business
Platform eContracting
Collaboration
Proactive Event Transport (Re-)
Monitoring Planning
Back-End
SaaS Integration Layer
Domain- Smart Items Legacy systems and 3rd party services
specific Generic
capabilities Enablers
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13. Illustrative Example
logistics process
BCM provides global view on overall process
Real-world
• Based on the real
situation, the TPM
plans the transport and
creates a plan
• BCM imports this plan
and converts it to the
BCM create transport plan
TPM internal
FInest Platform
contract representation, based
internal representation
contract info. on Collaboration
11 44 status ECM Objects
33 • Based on the
22 up- events to monitor
…… date plan, BCM registers
events
EPM events to monitor
(e.g., ship arrival in
• EPM events Ålesund to update the
are used
internal model (e.g., ship arrived)
Involved
Stakeholders
• Stakeholders access this
information to get up-to-date view
Port of NCL
Authorities on the logistics process
Ålesund T&F • Encapsulation in Collaboration
• Each CO represents a certain part of the log. process Objects ensures non-disclosure of
• Stakeholders can only access particular data 13
confidential data

14. Summary and Questions
• Cloud computing offers
significant advantages for
“on demand” distributed
collaboration
• Cloud based logistics
provides a means to rapidly
assemble and manage
logistics services
• Collaboration “in the cloud”
levels the playing field for
customers, service providers
and regulatory agencies The Future of Supply Chain Management is
in the Clouds
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15. THANK YOU!
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