Digitization is paramount for many of the exhibitors. Minister Alexander Dobrindt wants the 5G-standard across the board by 2025.
The world of logistics is meeting at transport logistic in Munich until Friday. Federal minister of transportation, Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), opened the worldwide largest trade fair on freight traffic, logistics and supply chain management on Tuesday. Approximately 2,160 exhibitors from 62 countries present their products and services in the Bavarian capital – which is an increase of exhibitors of five percent compared to the transport logistic 2015.
Summit Meeting
Dobrindt called the trade fair „a summit meeting of those who move the world forward.“ Without the logistics industry, prosperity would be unthinkable, he stressed, also emphasizing the industry‘s importance in connection with logistics 4.0 and digitization. „Logistics is a key factor to leading digitization to success,“ the minister emphasized. The topic of digitization stands at the top of the agenda for many exhibitors, said Dobrindt following his tour of the trade fair. To him it‘s also clear: „Those who aren‘t prepared for complete digitization will lose out in this phase of innovation.“
Dobrindt hopes that the new possibilities of digitization will also increase the industry‘s efficiency – specifically further improvement of the supply chain‘s utilization. But he also knows that appropriate basic conditions are necessary to make this work – like an efficient infrastructure. Dobrindt pointed out that it was possible to increase the investments in infrastructure to a record high during his term – from 10 to 14 billion euros per year.
Data standard 5G available all over Germany by 2025
At the same time, the minister emphasized that a digitial infrastructure is also required next to the analog infrastructure. At the moment, data standard 5G is reserved for the digital test field autobahn on the A9 and for the Hamburg seaport. „But we want 5G all over Germany by 2025,“ Dobrindt announced. The industry and his house would spend approximately 100 billion euros.
Like Dobrindt, Mercedes-Benz truck director Stefan Buchner also sees the potential of digitization in otpimizing the flow of goods and utilization of vehicles. „Trucks are on the road only 35 percent of the time, so there‘s an enormous potential for optimization,“ Buchner said. He mentioned his house‘s Truck Data Center – a box in the driver‘s cabin which is able to communicate with forwarding agents and workshops to provide data in real time. It also enables the new IT-service Uptime – customers are able to prevent breakdowns by being informed about possible malfunctions or repairs early on.
Logistics service provider Panalpina has also positioned themselves accordingly and recognizes the chances of increasing connectivity. „We recognized the need to invest ten years ago. Today, we have a central platform which provides a worldwide standard in data quality,“ Panalpina director Stefan Karlen said.
