Deutsche Post World Net opened the multi-million euro DHL Innovation Center in Troisdorf near Bonnyesterday. The “laboratory of the future” is designed to play a key role in the group’s future
strategy.The goal and mission of the DHL Innovation Center are to develop marketable, highlyinnovative products from logistics trends of the future. In addition, the laboratory of the futureforms an umbrella organization for all areas of technical innovation management that the companyhas been exploring, DPWN said in a statement.
Chairman Dr. Klaus Zumwinkel stressed this in his address at the opening ceremony: “Today, weare the largest logistics company in the world. But size alone is no measure of success. Whatcounts is our customers’ satisfaction. This is why we will amaze our customers with even newer andmore future-oriented products.”
The main speaker at the opening ceremony of the DHL Innovation Center in Troisdorf was JeremyRifkin. The American scientist whose work focuses on the impact of scientific and technologicalchanges on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment, has been influential inshaping public policy in the United States and around the world.
A further speaker at the ceremony was the premier of the German federal state of NorthRhine-Westphalia, Dr. Jürgen Rüttgers, who was Germany’s minister of education, science, researchand technology from 1994 to 1998.
The projects at the DHL Innovation Center are being conducted jointly with partners includingIBM, Intel and SAP. The DHL Innovation Center also maintains research partnerships with thelogistics institutes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston and Zaragoza, andthe German Fraunhofer institutes. About 20 permanent employees are working on innovation projectsin the center. An additional 10 jobs are filled by employees from the innovation and researchpartners.
Besides serving as a laboratory of the future, the DHL Innovation Center performs two otherfunctions. For visitors, the center has a showroom where they can see the interrelationship ofglobal product streams and logistics networks. World-spanning networks can be visualized on a roundtable that serves as a projection screen, enabling customers to examine individual streams of goodsand information.
In the exhibition area, prototypes of current development projects are set up. The projectsinclude a robot that can unload delivery vehicles, and that can recognize different sized packages,pick them up and place them on a conveyor belt. In addition to the laboratory and showroom, the DHLInnovation Center has a conference area. With this concept, Deutsche Post World Net is breaking newground. No other logistics company has a facility that can compare to the DHL Innovation Center.
