Page 56 - Case Study Annual 2015

Logistics

CHEP backs Modulushca project in
the Physical Internet
Logistics sustains our lifestyle and businesses activities. Physical objects are moved
in containers, stored, realised, supplied and used throughout the world, allowing
the globalisation of world trade. But there is still a harsh fact to be solved due to the
inefficiency and unsustainability of the processes from an economic, environmental
and social perspective. By Victor Leftwick, director Business Solutions & Innovation, Sales, CHEP

Despite all efforts of the World Wide Web. The www phenomenon
already undertaken enabled the transition from a world of unconnected
to improve transport servers and computers to what we now know as the
technologies, CO2 ‘Information Superhighway’ or the ‘Internet’, an open
emissions are still growing. and interconnected distributed network collaboration
Trucks and containers are often that forever transformed industries, economies, culture
half empty at departure, with and society at large.
a 42,6% of average utilisation,
and vehicle and containers often Some 25 years on and a Professor Benoit Montreuil
return empty, or travel extra routes started another revolution. This time it’s in the field of
to find return shipments (25% of logistics, which he has termed the ‘Physical Internet’.
travel). Besides this, multimodal Even though there are fundamental differences between
routes are most often time- the physical world and the information world, the
and-cost inefficient and risky due to badly designed Physical Internet initiative aims to exploit the Internet
interfaces. metaphor so as to propose a vision for a sustainable
and progressively deployable breakthrough solution
To overcome this Global Logistics Sustainability to global problems associated with the way we move,
Grand Challenge, the ‘Physical Internet’ is an store, realise, supply and use physical objects all around
international initiative that proposes a new efficient and the world.
sustainable logistics system. It is defined as an open
global logistics system founded on physical, digital and This work forms the foundation for a European
operational interconnectivity through encapsulation, funded project closely co-ordinated with North
interfaces and protocols. This initiative is based on American partners and the international Physical
applying the Digital Internet metaphor to enable such Internet Initiative, whose aim is to address current
an open network of networks for physical objects like perceived inefficiencies in supply chain and to achieve
the one employed in the World Wide Web. This new
concept drives to high-performance logistics centres,
movers and systems, making it seamless, easy, fast,
reliable and cheap to interconnect physical objects
through modes and routes, with an overarching aim
towards universal interconnectivity.

The Physical Internet

Many years ago (say around 1990) we were in the midst
of a technology revolution, but perhaps the most exciting
of these developments was credited to Tim Berners-
Lee, a British scientist best known as the inventor

54 the logistics news case study annual 2015