Pushing the boundaries Project Partners
B U S I N E S S I N T E RV I E W
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Sir Henry Royce’s famous quote is at the forefront of the mind of Aleksandar Rodic, Global CIO at FIEGE, as he drives the company forward in this digital era. Written by Anna McMahon • Produced by Jennifer Davies
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Pioneers of contract logistics, FIEGE is a privately-owned company that has been in existence for more than 140 years. ith a focus on contract logistics, its customers span the globe, from the Far East and Eastern Europe, to Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and The Netherlands. Global CIO, Aleksandar Rodic, is proud of the company’s history. He says, “In the late 70s, we invented the contract logistics principle. Since then, we have grown to provide logistics services with a turnover of around 1.7 billion euros. “We have a wide portfolio and work with a range of clients, including first tier industrial customers and fashion customers. What makes us strong is our agility, as well as our ability to provide tailored solutions to our customers.” 4
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Digitalisation has played a key role in enabling growth at FIEGE, empowering operations and adding value. Aleksandar says, “We started with a strategic initiative in 2011 to create a digital transparent portal, offering our services and full transparency to our clients. For example, when outsourcing warehousing logistics, the warehouse domain is often a black box, so customers don’t see what is happening inside the warehouse. It can cause huge overhead costs to share this information. We needed a new system to give full transparency to our clients and to our operations. We started digitalisation from the bottom, enabling our employees
“PSI h crea wa sy b 6
on the shop floor to steer the business, communicating digitally and building up the digitalisation pyramid from the GEMBA (a Japanese word meaning ‘the actual place’) to top management and to our clients. This has reduced overhead and operational costs significantly and increased satisfaction of our customers.” FIEGE has also used digitalised approaches to motivate and inspire employees on the shop floor. Pickers in the warehouse, for example, have a target they are required to meet each hour. Created using the digital platform, a monitor showing their progress applying gamification approach has been installed, so employees can see at a glance how well they are doing as a team. Aleksandar adds, “The biggest added value we can generate is value in operations, which, in turn, creates additional Aleksandar Rodic, Global CIO value to our clients.”
has provided and ated our advanced arehouse management ystem, a strong and solid baseline on which to connect to our digital fulfilment platform and digital hub”
A lot of companies promote operational excellence but continue
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ogistics service providers have to face the daily challenges of finding the right solution for different customer requirements. A strong focus on customers involves maximum flexibility. The highly competitive and cost pressure also requires efficient action in order to successfully survive in the market. For this, the use of modern
software such as PSIwms is vital. As an independent software provider, PSI Logistics develops customized solutions based on its products for customers throughout Europe. Thereby, they are leaders in innovation and technology and with every product and every release they bring to the market, they want to help their customers optimize their logistics.
“The new PSI-Click-Design offers fully-customisable user interfaces and a new dimension of configurability�
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© Pictures: Fiege Logistik Stiftung & Co. KG © Screenshots: PSI Logistics GmbH
The high-availability, scalable framework based on current Java technology forms the common high-performance platform for all PSI products. Based on modeldriven software development, PSI relies on global standards to reduce reliance on technology cycles. The software can be adapted quickly and flexibly to meet customer needs through a cutting-edge user interface and scores of productivity enhancements. The software products are particularly suitable for large volumes. You can capture and process huge quantities of data in real time, and at the same time allow access to many users. The new PSI-Click-Design offers fullycustomisable user interfaces and a new dimension of configurability. Depending on the profile, users can create new
screens and views using an intuitive graphic editor. This can be used to easily adapt menus, lists and tables, detail views and composition of complex dialogues for the operating time via drag & drop, and to save these in profiles. This reduces costs for customer-specific modifications (cost of change). All products have a modular structure and can be configured according to the project. They can be expanded individually and thanks to standardised interfaces can be easily integrated into your IT system landscape to meet increasing demands Further information about PSIwms can be found here: www.psilogistics.com/en/ solutions/warehouse-management/
Contact: Rüdiger Stauch | r.stauch@psilogistics.com | +49 30 2801-2850 PSI Logistics GmbH | Dircksenstraße 42-44 | 10178 Berlin
to work with paper to share information in the old-fashioned, manual way. By applying digital ideas to enhance operational excellence, FIEGE uses information and events that are raised by business and operation, merged with KPIs and real warehouse activities, to bring operational excellence to the highest level. This establishes digital CIP (continuous improvement process). In addition, the Covid-19 crisis has brought further challenges to the company, which FIEGE quickly turned into an opportunity. Aleksandar explains, “At the height of Covid, there was a big demand for storage space, with the additional pressure of localised lockdowns. We created a digital fulfilment platform, where available storage space in our company, our partners’ companies or our competitors’ could be offered to potential
Aleksandar Rodic, Global CIO
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“GET has played an important role, thanks to their speed and agility in implementing new solutions at a fast pace”
customers to store critical goods, and we connected the platform to our warehouse management system. “This enabled the government to store all security and medical goods in our warehouses and distribute them across the country within days. What is great is that the product was developed and integrated
using our existing systems and models.” MyFIEGE is an idea that is currently in development, first thought up during Covid-19, which aims to enhance the digital experience and empower end customers. It provides GEMBA information to clients, the possibility of booking additional services without supplementary contracts, as well as access to invoices, the current warehouse situation and cutting-edge offerings. By creating a digital workplace, employees can manage MyFIEGE themselves, whether requesting holidays, entering time corrections or providing additional insights. Aleksandar adds, “This is the next level of logistics as a service.” 11
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The end goal for FIEGE is to become a data-driven company. Aleksandar explains, “All our initiatives are driving towards one common goal – to be data-driven – and to enable our customers, partners and employees to become more data-driven, using the platform and KPIs in this way.” FIEGE has worked with a number of key partners on its journey, and Aleksandar is very pleased with the company’s partnership with PSI. He says, “PSI has provided and created our advanced warehouse management system, a strong and solid baseline on which to connect to our digital fulfilment platform and digital hub. I have been very impressed by their speed and flexibility. Within weeks, there were teams working across Germany and Europe, bringing value to our operations and business as a whole.” Microsoft is another data-driven company whose technology FIEGE has employed to
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bring the cutting-edge, flexibility and scalability required for future growth, along with GET, which FIEGE has worked with on the development of its digital platform. Aleksandar adds, “GET has played an important role, thanks to their speed and agility in implementing new solutions at a fast pace. They have helped to bring us to where we are today – a premium brand in contract logistics and transport logistics.” On a final note, Aleksandar highlights the company’s green credentials. He says, “In the 90s, we were the first to take sustainability seriously. We built warehouses that could generate part of their energy on their own using windmills, which was very forward-thinking. We have small bee hives near some of our
“The environment is a very important driver in everything we do, from building green warehouses, to our sustainable social activities” 14
warehouses, bringing sustainability to the region by encouraging pollination. We give the honey to our employees, partners and charity. The environment is therefore a very important driver in everything we do, from building green warehouses, to our sustainable social activities.� Next we find out more about the MyFIEGE platform from the driving force behind it; Klaus Luestraeten - Head of IT, Information Management & Digital Transformation, Leif Lienhard Head of IT, Logistics Applications, and Philipp Holtgreve - Senior Business Consultant.
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We learn first-hand about the development of the myFIEGE platform. 17
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FIEGE has a strong team of individuals working on myFIEGE to bring it to fruition. Leif Lienhard is Head of IT, Logistics Applications; Klaus Luestraeten is Head of IT, Information Management & Digital Transformation; and Philipp Holtgreve is Senior Business Consultant. According to Leif, the idea for myFIEGE came from evaluations from customer surveys, as well as experience gleaned from communication with both customers and partners alike. He says, “The needs of our customers and partners were consolidated and analysed in the IT department, and myFIEGE was brought to life. The plan is to develop the platform in steps in an evolutionary way, and to provide more and more functionalities as we go along.” The project involves many different departments and business units. However, the project work is driven by an interdisciplinary core team of business development, marketing 18
and IT. Leif explains, “We want to be able to offer the entire FIEGE service portfolio as digitally as possible to our existing and potential customers. We have services that can be offered and used completely digitally, as well as services where the initiation and later use of the logistic services can be supported digitally very well. It is about offering our customers all services in one place – in myFIEGE. The customer has the opportunity to find and combine their FIEGE services, maintained by our business development team. Existing customers, for whom we have been providing a good service for many years, may not even be aware of all the new services. With myFIEGE, we hope to achieve greater customer loyalty and offer our customers individual and combinable FIEGE services.”
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There are many platforms already in operation in the contract logistics sector, but without the digital depth and great variety of logistics services that myFIEGE provides. So, what kind of technology is FIEGE employing in the development of the platform? Klaus answers, “The challenge of the myFIEGE platform is that it needs to be scalable, fast and flexible. So, we researched the market for what could be a possible IT solution, checking full-stackdevelopment and Low-Code/ No-Code platforms. We also had a lot of discussion on whether we wanted to set up this platform on-premise in our own computer centre, or if we could see the benefits of using a cloud solution.”
The platform is available directly over the internet with one platform for all customers, which presented numerous challenges. Klaus adds, “We needed an extended security and role concept. On the one hand, the platform should be used as a presales portal, so public areas need to be available but there is the requirement for an easy registration process. And on the other hand, we had a lot of ideas for various services and functions which could be 20
integrated, so we needed to start small and learn, aligning on the priority list of functions.” The first feedback has been really positive, with the general consensus being that the platform is easy to use, with good integration into the existing FIEGE systems. Klaus says, “We see a lot of potential for the future. Our first workshops gave us an insight into the kind of digital services we could offer. We strongly believe that the more customers we reach, the more ideas we will get from our end users. That is also the reason why we decided to use a flexible platform, to adapt quickly to the market.”
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The vision for myFIEGE is to eventually serve all stakeholders that interact and collaborate with FIEGE as an organisation; from employees and customers, to the general public, including end customers. Philipp says, “myFIEGE meets several needs that are now being highlighted in the Covid-19 era, such as quick, easy and seamless options to collaborate and make business. Having business insights and opportunities transparently displayed and made accessible is key to reducing long, bureaucratic inquiry and contracting processes. With myFIEGE, customers will be offered a seamless digital customer journey, from inquiry to operational fulfilment, as well as real-time insight into their business.” Following the Design Thinking processes enabled the team to challenge their ideas constantly and to foremost consider the customer’s point of view. Philipp concludes, “This helped us in finetuning our pilot projects and in sharpening them in an iterative manner.” 22
“With myFIEGE, customers will be offered a seamless digital customer journey, from inquiry to operational fulfilment, as well as real-time insight into their business�
For further information on FIEGE, visit www.fiege.com
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www.fiege.com +49 (0)2571 999 0 Joan-Joseph-Fiege-StraĂ&#x;e 1 48268 Greven
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