The idea of forming a ‘Tech Board’ was formulated by ECG President Wolfgang Göbel at the ECG General Assembly & Spring Congress in 2023. This specialist group gathers around the table IT-savvy people who also have a good understanding of the FVL supply chain. Members have been invited from LSPs, OEMs and IT companies.
In the framework of the Tech Implementation Funnel (see chart below), the Tech Board has set forth to analyse the challenges that the industry is facing as a whole; monitor the technology trends and evaluate how technology development can solve upcoming challenges. It is expected that this evaluation will then lead to specific projects that ECG’s Digitalisation Working Group can work on afterwards. These projects should then yield tangible developments for the benefit of the whole FVL ecosystem. Another rationale for the group is to help new actors and new technologies enter the specialized sector of Finished Vehicle Logistics.
As a first step, a survey was sent out to the entire FVL sector in December 2023 to establish the wider challenges of the sector, from the perspective of both LSPs and OEMs. The survey covered all aspects of operations (capacity, costs, lead time, etc.), as well as the digital strategies of the responding companies. The results of the survey were published in March 2024 and can be accessed below. The next steps of the Tech Board will be circulated soon.
