ECG — 2025-07-11
News from ECG
AACHEN Germany. "It's important to have a basic understanding of the buzzwords, to be able to evaluate, not to pay for the hype, but to pay for the value." Szymon Pasko, AUTO1, shared their AI experience at the AI-Day organized by ECG – the Association of European Vehicle Logistics, in collaboration with the software company INFORM.
The AI-Day took place on Tuesday, 8 July, focusing on the Role of AI in Finished Vehicle Logistics (FVL) as the first event of the ECG Tech Board. The event was held in the German city of Aachen, known for its technical university and its hot springs, which date back to the Roman colonisation of the city. Aachen was also the primary royal residence of the Frankish Empire, ruled by Charlemagne, and now the site of the headquarters of INFORM.
At the ECG General Assembly in Cascais in May, over half of the participants answered that they already use AI in some way.
"The event intended to provide expert insights into the fundamentals and future potential of AI in FVL and to show practical applications and implementation strategies", says Szilvi Kiss, Senior Research & Projects Manager, ECG.
The moderator, Karol Niznik, SVP of Production, Logistics, and Procurement from AUTO1, and Dennis Feddern, SVP for Vehicle Logistics at INFORM, kicked off the day by explaining that dealing with AI doesn't require a total understanding of the algorithms, but more importantly, a sense of their value.
When the perfection of loading vehicle trailers was being discussed, and the frequent challenge of inaccurate information from producers, the experts rescued the sector from despair, stating that there will probably never be perfect loads but that" good enough" could add a significant value.
Jörg Herbers, Co-CEO Inform, gave hints of what to expect from the future. "My claim is that we will see more AI being pervasive in the software industry, particularly in optimisation and operations. Every company will use the technology in as many places as you use software", Jörg Herbers explained and took the audience on a journey from AI's big wins in the game of chess, ChatGPT, chatbots, Gen AI and physical AI, as in robots.
"Think of what AI can do in the logistic operations!" Jörg Herbers said. "What it could interpret, how it could perceive its surroundings, and how it could create operational awareness. Think about how much visibility you have and how much you can optimise operations having operational visibility.”
Jörg Herbers exemplified companies using drones to overlook compounds, increasing visibility, explaining that multimodal models recognise the surroundings and interpret them, providing valuable information.
Comments from the participants highlighted problems with the error rate by the computer and an “hallucinating” effect of errors as a significant barrier. Jörg Herbers agreed that 80% recognition is not good enough but that there already are operation systems ready with a higher rate and that the development is going fast.
Szymon Pasko, VP of tech at AUTO1, described how his company has come a long way in utilising AI. In his presentation, he discussed the foundations of using AI and that the improvement of the technique is getting closer to perfect recognition.
"There are clear indications that the technology is not at its end yet. So, the reinforcement learning moves, the second phase of LLM training is still something that seems to have quite some potential", he says. (editorial note: LLM is a Large Language Model, the process of training a model to understand and generate human language).
"If you're looking on the technical side, there are a lot of buzzwords. It's important to understand the buzzwords on the basic level, to be able to evaluate, not pay for the hype, but pay for the value", Szymon Pasko said.
AUTO1 invests a significant amount of money in AI and predicts that it will earn a return, but not just yet. Szymon Pasko said, emphasising that the investments will be used on the level of paying for the models efficiently.
Even today, AI offers numerous opportunities for efficiency gains through timesaving solutions that still require human intervention, but significantly reduce workload, such as invoice processing and screening documents.
He emphasised the importance of avoiding free software as it may result in data leakage and ultimately turn your data into the product. He also warned against using it without reflection, particularly for legal departments. You still need to do your job, making the decisions, not letting AI make decisions for you.
He also issued a warning regarding data security, reminding that technology can also be used to attack companies.
Kai Ebenhöh went through the challenges that needed to be overcome in the FVL sector. "There are many low-hanging fruits in vehicle logistics" he said, arguing that it's not about employing fewer people but letting the company grow by allowing the staff to work differently than today.
Patrick Gebert, Senior Software Developer and Data Scientist from Etecture discussed agentic AI for logistics by empowering complex operations.
Patrick Gebert illustrated this with a project where Etecture collaborated with Mosolf’s international sales team. The goal was to improve the handling of price inquiries and tender documents using an AI agent.
Companies like Mosolf receive numerous tender requests almost daily. These must be evaluated quickly for legal aspects, operational feasibility, capacity impact, and commercial conditions – all under tight deadlines.
Thanks to the AI, this complex evaluation process, which used to require a lot of time and manual effort, became much more efficient. As a result, Mosolf was able to analyze and process five times more tender documents than before.
As the moderator Karol Niznik put it: “GenAI can help you organise your holiday, Agentic AI can book it.”
Panagiota Sdoukou, Communications and Events manager at ECG and ECG Academy Alumni represented the project group from ECG Academy, presenting their benchmarking across industries for transferability to FVL. She explained how AI could help master Container Yard Management by optimising efficiency and achieving yearly savings of 100 million euros.
As part of real-life cases, AUTO1 presented its proprietary vehicle scanner, the AUTO1 car Audit technology, a device with a 90% automatic detection rate for optical damages. Karol Niznik explained that the scanner was developed in-house, both hardware, software and business integration. He and Szymon Pasko emphasised the importance of the feedback loops that the scanners receive on their damage detection, as well as the number of vehicles that pass through the scanners. More data and feedback will lead to a more reliable damage identification rate.
Kirsti Gjertsen, Segment Manager Automotive at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, presented the idea of a “smart port”, which they created through innovation projects, trials and pilots. Among the investments are automated drones, which fly 18 flights over the compound daily for 24/7 inspection and photography. These, combined with smart cameras, predict potential problems and detect issues, resulting in improved efficiency and safety. She also highlighted the importance of port community systems which aggregate data of all actors in the port community.
As a key takeaway repeated across many presentations was the importance of data sharing: we need to connect the dots in the FVL ecosystem. What AI applications depend on most is data – and not just any data, but accurate and reliable data. This makes high-quality data a fundamental prerequisite for any successful AI Project.
AI continues to evolve and its applications in FVL will further expand, we are closely following these developments and providing a platform for dialogue across the industry.