HERE Technologies - Wielding the latest location technology to solve global challenges

Wielding the latest location technology to

solve global challenges P R O J E C T

PA R T N E R

BUSINESS INTERVIEW

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Bart Coppelmans, Director of Industry Solutions, Global Head of Supply Chain & Logistics at HERE Technologies on representing reality digitally to radically improve the way the world moves, interacts and lives.

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HERE Technologies is a global leader in enterprise-grade location platforms and services. he company launched over 35 years ago and created the world’s first digital map – today it offers truly global coverage as the world-leading location data and technology company.

In the four decades since HERE launched, it has gone from creating static, physical representations of the world around us to enabling advanced, dynamic and dataorientated location services and technologies providing real-time

insights to modern users and businesses. HERE has a commanding presence in several verticals, spanning industries including automotive, transport and logistics (T&L), mobility, manufacturing, retail and the public sector. Beyond the company’s own dedicated platform and tools, its technology and solutions are ‘under the hood’ for a multitude of applications around the world.

Here to tell us more about the company’s innovative approach to location

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intelligence which empowers its users to optimise their businesses, transform data systems, enhance supply chain visibility and ultimately strive for a more sustainable future is Bart Coppelmans, Director of Industry Solutions, Global Head of Supply Chain & Logistics at HERE Technologies.

Bart and his team are responsible for creating industry and growth strategies in key verticals, 6

consulting with customers and partners on how HERE can support them in overcoming their challenges by building new propositions for clients or developing joint projects with them.

“We are customer-facing and incredibly focused on supporting our customers and partners overcoming challenges in the transport and logistics (T&L)

Bart Coppelmans, Director of Industry Solutions, Global Head of Supply Chain & Logistics

space by implementing location technology,” begins Bart. “When we see a trend in the market or a need from our customers, we incorporate that back into our internal product portfolio roadmap. Our responsibilities don’t stop there – we support our customers while implementing new propositions into the market through close collaborations.

Partnerships are essential for us because of the importance of a

broader ecosystem as no one can do this alone. We need ecosystem partners both for connecting the dots and having our solution services embedded into broader propositions and software applications.”

HERE Technologies works with its partners and customers to help optimise their operations. From using its geocoding and search tool to identify locations and determine if deliveries have arrived, to planning and analysing optimal trucking routes and calculating estimated arrival times or total costs of transportation – HERE Technologies 7

empowers its customers to make informed decisions while planning, distributing and analysing their operations in a way that improves efficiency and effectiveness.

One of the crucial areas HERE Technologies supports its partners and customers is with planning, optimisation, monitoring and driver support solutions.

“Our goal is to help players find the most efficient way to deliver their goods utilising our truck routing as well as tour planning and optimisation tools,” says Bart. “Our diverse range of tools supports clients in several ways.

For instance, imagine a scenario where your vehicle is out on a job and you get a last-minute order from a customer that wants sameday delivery, and you want to meet your service level agreement (SLA) while also delivering on time. Our platform offers dynamic replanning, so customers know which vehicle might need to be recalled to the warehouse, if they need to adjust their planned route to take a detour and what impact will this ultimately have on the actual delivery time.

“Another thing we do is if certain shipments and fleets are in execution, we support our 8

customers with accurate routing.

How long will it take drivers to reach a destination? What is their estimated arrival time and will delays or traffic impact it? Do they need to reroute to save time and still arrive when their recipient expects? We assist drivers out there in the field with accurate driver navigation, alerting and support.

But we also help the back office by providing accurate up-to-date fleet location overviews and sending alerts if ETAs change.

“Lastly, our planning optimisation and ETA solutions help our clients operating in urban areas which are becoming increasingly congested. If you look at urban delivery systems and distribution within cities, last-mile delivery is getting more crowded by the day.

We see growing needs among T&L companies for further optimisation before their drivers go out into the field. HERE helps them create different areas and districts, organise their networks more effectively, be more dynamic in the process and optimise delivery to their customer base accordingly.”

Bart highlights the importance of HERE Technologies’ collaboration with proLogistik Group, a Germanbased international IT company specialising in warehouse

“proLogistik is a key partner for us in terms of using our software. They developed an end customer application called Active Smart Tour with our technology under the hood, which is focused on enabling more efficient fleet operations and transport planning” management systems, transport management systems and fleet planning and optimisation solutions. “proLogistik is a key partner for us in terms of using our software.

They developed an end customer application called Active Smart

Tour with our technology under the hood, which is focused on enabling more efficient fleet operations and transport planning,” explains Bart.

“Smart Tour uses our mapping, geocoding and tour planning products as an algorithm to calculate multi-vehicle and multijob routing optimisation.”

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SAVING WORKING TIME, KILOMETRES AND MONEY IN TOUR PLANNING Innovative route and tour planning with artificial intelligence (AI) renders the work of a freight forwarder immensely easier. Tour planning is subject to great challenges today after all. The sustained shortage of skilled workers makes it difficult to find experienced route planners, while the high complexity of the task is characterised by a variety of parameters such as delivery times, traffic conditions, and customer priorities. Increasing cost pressure requires optimisation of routes and resources to reduce fuel costs and minimise vehicle maintenance costs. Outdated system landscapes further strain efficiency by rendering real-time data integration and automation difficult. Large amounts of knowledge in route planning also are distributed among just a few heads, typically leaving a company if those employees depart.

TOUR PLANNING WITH AI SOFTWARE SOLUTION • For logistics service providers in the logistics, trade and industry • Tour planning for local transport (deliveries and collections) • Considering current and past influences • Automatic planning of collection shipments in active operation • Scheduling for support of tour planning and monitoring • Comprehensive tour monitoring

The active smart tour transportation software offers a solution to the challenges described. It uses selflearning algorithms for optimal route planning based on coordinated destinations. The software contains important parameters from the transport management system (TMS), such as fleet, vehicle availability and driver skills. Basic scheduling rules are also defined as the basis of the software’s calculations. This includes, among other things, restrictions on which areas may be served by which fleet component. In addition, optimisation targets are set for route planning, such as:

• Shortest transport distance • Scheduling of all orders • Balanced use of the vehicle fleet • Optimal cost-benefit ratio The artificial intelligence then takes over all further tasks.

It will consider not only the available resources but also delivery windows, real-time traffic data, goods receiving times and evaluation of historical traffic flows. Using this as a basis, the software compiles a complete route schedule.

A dashboard will display the most important key figures for planning, for example the number of tours, tour status and trip kilometres. The dispatcher can also view the shipments of each individual tour and easily adjust the schedule with a drag and drop function.

The software shows bookings for individual shipments as well as estimated times of arrival (ETA) and the probable unloading time per stop in an overview. The dispatcher can change both the stop sequence within a tour and the tour assignment of individual shipments based on these values. The calculation will be adjusted to any manual change immediately.

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Once the vehicles are on the road, the dispatcher can follow their route progress in real time using the monitoring function. In this process, ETAs are recalculated continuously, and the dispatcher will be informed proactively if there are any deviations from the plan. Orders received during the day can also be scheduled completely automatically using the algorithm in the monitoring feature.

AUTOMATED AND EFFICIENT FUNCTIONS • Automatic planning of tours under consideration of pre-defined restrictions • Constant updates of the expected arrival and departure times (ETA) • Monitoring of the tour progress in tour monitoring • Automated planning of collection shipments • Simple connection to any existing third-party software possible via standard web service interface • Individual specification of optimisation targets by route, time or costs • Resource planning on driver and vehicle levels

AI DELIVERS SUPERIOR RESULTS • Considerable cost savings of up to 30 per cent through resource and route optimisation • Time savings in route planning of up to 90 per cent • CO2-savings due to shorter distances • Relief of the dispatchers through automated route formation • Multi-level notification on progress to the final recipient • Adjustment of running tours in real time • Consideration of real-time traffic information and weather data

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Bart elaborates on some of the ways HERE Technologies leverages location intelligence to optimise business operations and help their clients overcome the challenges of a siloed data landscape.

“Let’s take the T&L industry as a demonstrative example,” explains Bart. “There are many different stakeholders involved and there are several layers of subcontracting to consider. If you have a company that wants to transport a shipment from A to B, there could be eight to 10 different players involved from freight forwarders through to third-party logistics providers working to get the shipment from one place to the other side of the world. We support every one of those players across their different business processes, from planning and monitoring to driver support and analytics.

“Our location services help to overcome the challenges of a siloed data landscape because we operate as a horizontal player reconciling all the different parties involved, including the various transport 13

management, fleet management, planning and driver application systems they might be using. Our location platform acts as the glue and central source of location truth supporting them simultaneously, making it easier to connect these seemingly disparate systems or players because we have built several data connectors and data integration layers.

“It all starts with our partner’s and customer’s operational data. Often clients have multiple systems in place across a certain region. This is a challenging topic because it's hard for them to make connections even if the data is high-quality.

That's where we come in. We support our customers with a database and tools like geocoding, search and autocomplete mechanisms to improve accuracy for planning purposes. We also have tools and support in place to help our customers improve the quality of the data gathered even further.”

Bart describes how HERE Technologies embraces pragmatism in its service provision by identifying growing needs among its customers and adapting its offerings accordingly.

“We have our base map and base database that can display a range 14

of attributes,” says Bart. “But we now also see a growing need among users for customising the experience. They might want to work with their own operational data, customer addresses or points of interest for example. So, we are opening up our platform environment and our tools so we can support customers by connecting their operational data with the latest location intelligence data, services and technology

– customised and tailored to fit their core operations and business needs.”

One of the recurring conversations Bart has with customers focuses on how HERE Technologies' location data and technology can enhance their supply chain visibility and lead to benefits for businesses.

shipments, assets or vehicles, it improves your bottom line by reducing costs and waste,” explains Bart. “If customers identify certain inefficiencies in their process, and do so early on, they can achieve business benefits. Our platform is supporting the end-to-end workflow, thereby identifying breaks in the chain.

“In general, if you have better visibility and control of your

“To use a tangible example, users can see if they have a certain driver 15

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AS A DRIVER OF THE FUTURE IN LOGISTICS Artificial intelligence (AI) has recently enjoyed great media attention once more thanks to ChatGPT. AI comes into play precisely when massive amounts of data and parameters need to be evaluated since it not only maps complex relationships but can also learn from experience.

Hardly any task in logistics can rival scheduling in complexity. Hardly any other area has as much potential for optimisation by mathematical calculations alone. This is because the sum of possible options for optimal planning, under consideration of all relevant parameters, exceeds the human planning horizon by far.

ADVANTAGES OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN ROUTE PLANNING • Efficient route optimisation • Saving costs and optimising resources • Faster deliveries and shorter waiting times • Real-time adjustments to traffic conditions • Better customer satisfaction • More sustainable logistics solutions • Reduced complexity of route planning

Noticeable savings potential Significant cost savings of up to 30 per cent are achieved in route planning by optimising resources and routes with artificial intelligence. Time savings of up to 90 per cent and noticeable CO2 savings from shorter distances also bring about clear results.

AI-controlled scheduling at the push of a button Active logistics customers are already using the AI software solution active smart tour today to help them plan their optimal tours. The challenge here is in putting multiple locations to be visited in an order that leads to repeat visits of only the first station while keeping the total distance travelled as short as possible and making the first and the last stations identical. Only eight stops already lead to 40,320 possible tours. 20 stops result in an incredible 2,432,902,008,176,640,000 possible combinations. This task is virtually impossible for the human mind to solve.

A self-learning algorithm, on the other hand, can solve it easily in just a few minutes. It will consider not only the available resources but also delivery windows, realtime traffic data, goods receiving times and evaluation of historical traffic flows. The smart tour software uses this basis to compile a complete tour schedule very quickly. The application also offers the possibility of monitoring all tours in real-time in order to make important decisions quickly where critical events occur.

Orders received after the original planning can also be planned using the algorithm. The application will check independently which vehicles are in the vicinity of the order and calculate the best option from this.

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out in the field, finishing a delivery at a specific endpoint, they can then analyse if there are more pickups in the area in the coming days and determine the most efficient and cost-effective course of action – whether that might be to instruct them to remain on location or arrange another driver to take the job.

“Of course, there are also concrete benefits in terms of KPIs,” adds Bart. “For instance,

understand factors like dwell times of shipments or where they are, precisely. Comprehensive oversight and clear supply chain visibility allow users to compare their intentions in the planning process to what actually takes place out there in the field. This delivers benefits to their business by enabling them to adjust their operations, potentially saving millions in costs and efficiencies.”

HERE Technologies not only optimises business operations and

“We offer customers tools to profile their vehicles within our platform so they not only see estimated arrival times but the overall financial cost and emissions outputs from journeys, adjusted to the specific details of their fleets” our customers are measuring ontime performance. But what is the actual time of arrival compared to the estimated arrival time? There's still a lot of manual back and forth in the T&L industry in terms of claims and penalties related to whether deliveries are on time – but with our location technology users have a clear timestamp for arrival.

“Last but not least, with location data and intelligence you have rich insights in general across your entire supply chain to truly

enhances supply chain visibility, the company also embraces its ability to drive sustainability and work towards a greener, safer future through the services it provides.

“Sustainability is a crucial topic for us at HERE and a fundamental development area internally,” says Bart. “We are working with car makers and commercial vehicle manufacturers to investigate how we can support their transition to greener vehicles. But we also develop the tools in our platform to 17

enhance sustainability, for instance with electric vehicles (EVs).

“EVs have different total mileage ranges and considerations in terms of factors like total load capacities and more,” explains Bart. “Customers have to organise,

CASE STUDIES Built with HERE: Active Logistics > HERE Tour Planning: Fleet modernisation and active logistics > HERNAV: Driver application powered

by HERE > 18

plan and execute transportation accordingly and we support our users by helping them adjust with optimised EV routes, plotting recharging stations and other last mile delivery considerations, for instance.

“We offer customers tools to profile their vehicles within our platform so they not only see estimated arrival times but the overall financial cost and emissions outputs from journeys, adjusted to the specific details of their fleets. This allows businesses to calculate their impact on the environment and emission footprint, which they can then factor into their planning and optimisation processes. In the near future, I hope to see the industry getting rewarded for adopting solutions where they can optimise

routes based on a greener emission footprint.

ADDED VALUE

“We welcome the fact that sustainability is rising higher and higher on the strategic agenda in the industries we serve and that we are in a strong position to help our users strive towards greener, safer and more environmentally beneficial goals that protect our future.”

Wrapping up our discussion, Bart stresses the importance of industry collaboration – vertically, but also horizontally.

“If you look at the transport and logistics industry, and other global industries in general, I think we need more organisational and operational level collaboration,” insists Bart. “There are still a lot of players working in silos with their operations. Of course, these companies have to consider margins and be realistic when they’re offering competing services – but I think that if we want to overcome global challenges, we really need that transparency and end-to-end collaboration across the board.”

Learn more about HERE Technologies at their website here.com.

PODCASTS Bart recently listened to a fascinating podcast called ‘Exploring the Money Trail with Mckinsey’ by McKinsey and Maersk Growth.

“This episode of the podcast I found particularly fascinating because it engaged with investments in supply chain technology, the rise of startups and the industry areas where the most progress is unfolding,” summarises Bart.

For readers interested in learning more about supply chain digitisation and the role of location technology within it, Bart recommends listening to a recent Supply Chain Brain podcast featuring his colleague Charlie Maynard.

Connect with Bart 19

here.com

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