Overview
KASSETTS was born to answer the need for ICT tools to help manufacturing companies, in particular SMEs, to optimise their transnational logistic traffics. SMEs EU logistics management was far from being optimal and SMEs could hardly access the optimised transnational transport solutions because of:
- small shipping; low frequency of their transports, the generation of a scattered transport demand; producing a large number of unfilled running vehicles; low use of intermodal transport (with increasing transport emissions);
- their low level of ICT endowment limiting their accessibility to the logistic supply.
KASSETTS aimed to solve the aforementioned problems by creating a stable EU operative ICT network of logistics brokers, based on open source policy, in which every broker is a joint logistic office among SMEs.
Ordering - Enabled manufacturing companies and SMEs to submit all daily transportation orders and keep their evidence and status.
Planning - Optimised the transportation missions by matching the orders' parameters with most effective routes and logistic operators' capacities, and assigned them to the best transport service providers.
Reporting - Sent detailed information on the used vehicle, costs and kilometres to each manufacturing company.
Funding
Results
The CENTRAL EUROPE (CEU) project KASSETTS developed fully operational, functioning informatics tools, with tuned services to monitor the performances of the logistics broker network activities, available since March 2012 for testing also on the KASSETTS web site. The whole CEU community of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Logistic Operators can so benefit of these free of charge tools supplied with multilanguage training materials. Since April 2011, the open brokers’ network lives, based on an organisational and business model (to support the set up of the pilot activities in all the 7 partners’ regions). In particular, in the period April-November 2011, the partners made big efforts to operate the 7 brokering offices in a pilot phase test with the support of the companies previously involved. The major activities in the 4 pilots (each involving 3 partners) mainly consisted in making the brokers operational by planning orders and calculate efficient transport missions solutions. Partners have produced key performance indicators (KPI) reports to assess the planned missions. Based on the KPI reports, the best week of the entire planning period was chosen and a report was made by each partner. The reports were merged into a cumulative report for each pilot. Morever, by March 2012 the partners assessed the results achieved in a cumulative framework. Based on the quantitative and qualitative findings, final recommendations were issued to feed and tune the Raod Map for brokers network sustainability also after the project end.
The Road Map for sustainability was made available in March 2012, it promotes the following aspects:organisational model, requirements for functional development of the KASSETTS ICT software, financial and human resources to be engaged and finally the promotional plan that the project partners together with local stakeholders manage since the project ended.
Regarding the other achievement, the guidelines for logistic brokers to set up were updated according to the need to make them a valid supporting tool for the new Logistics Brokers to set up: they can be used by a new broker whenever it decides to activate its service for companies. The established open logistics broker network with 7 brokers counts 110 SMEs and 48 Logistics operators that tested the informatics tool. The KASSETTS partners finalised the governance and organisational model of the brokers network. Its mission is to grant sustainability also after the project end at technical/financial/legal and oganisational level: software maintenance, future bug fixing, customization, add-ons, roling the composition and activities of the committe of brokers, fixing network rules. On the web site you find for download the KASSETTS EU Video, the Final publication and instructions to test the ICT application developed by the partners.