Every day, millions of delivery notes accompany goods shipments across Europe. However, there is no standardised digital data model for this. The Open Logistics Foundation is launching the eDeliveryNote project and will in the future provide free, openly available open source components that connect existing systems rather than replacing them.
The delivery note plays a central role in domestic freight transport. It documents the handover of goods, serves as proof of delivery and a receipt, and accompanies shipments throughout the entire supply chain. Because it primarily fulfils an operational requirement, its digitalisation has historically developed in a largely uncoordinated manner. The result is a fragmented system landscape in which industry-specific custom solutions and proprietary data formats continue to hinder seamless data exchange to this day – and prevent end-to-end digitalisation at the data level.
The Open Logistics Foundation is addressing precisely this problem and is launching the eDeliveryNote project within its Working Group Electronic Transport Documents. Markant is leading the project. Markant is a pan-European service provider that supports companies in the retail, industrial and logistics sectors with integrated digital solutions across the entire value chain from financial and payment services, through data and integration platforms, to supply chain and market data services.
Together with other member companies, the aim is to develop an open, consensus-based data model for the digital delivery note, supplemented by standardised application programming interfaces (APIs) and interoperable interfaces. The driving force behind this is not the development of a new product, but cross-sector interoperability. Systems, companies and sectors should be able to communicate with one another, regardless of the solution they currently use.
From the eCMR to the eDelivery Note: a tried-and-tested foundation, a new goal
The project builds on the experience and components already developed by the Working Group Electronic Transport Documents as part of the eCMR project. The Working Group’s aim is to create a digital portfolio. With the digital consignment note, the members of the Open Logistics Foundation have successfully demonstrated that the logistics industry can work together to create interoperable open source standards and bring them into widespread use. The eDelivery Note is the next logical step. Whilst the eCMR addresses cross-border road freight transport, the focus is now shifting to a document that plays an equally central role in domestic transport and exists in widely varying forms across different sectors.
The aim of the Open Logistics Foundation is not to build a new platform, but to provide an open, modular framework comprising relevant open source components that companies can integrate into their existing system landscapes with minimal effort. The focus is on the transformation from a document to a structured data set. The components developed are freely available in the Foundation’s repository and may also be used commercially under the OLF license. “We are not starting from scratch, but building on what we have already achieved together with the eCMR”, explains Reiner Sailer, Lead Service Owner for SupplyChainServices at Markant. “This gives us a robust technical foundation and provides the industry with a head start in the digitalisation of its transport processes”. Alexander Theegarten, project lead, adds: “At the same time, we are bringing experience from existing standards (such as EANCOM) to the project, so that a wide variety of standards does not emerge”.
Open to all competitors
The project has been designed to be broad in scope from the outset: logistics service providers, shippers, consignors and IT providers are all equally welcome to join the Working Group at any time and play an active role in developing the standard. “A motivated group of frontrunner companies has initiated this project”, says Nathalie Böhning, Innovation and Project Manager at the Open Logistics Foundation. “But a standard thrives on the diversity of those who use and further develop it. The more expertise that is contributed, the more robust and practical the solution becomes for everyone”.
