GS1 Austria and EDITEL are now part of the Blockchain Initiative Logistik

The initiative aims to implement a joint pilot project designed to assess the usefulness of blockchain technology for the shipping and logistics industries. A first use case has been defined and revolves around the digitization of shipping documents. These shipping documents are usually paper-based and their handling and sharing often happens haphazardly.

In upcoming workshops, the participants in this initiative will periodically follow and analyze the possible solution of digitizing specific shipping documents using blockchain technology. One of the goals is to ensure that documents are available and can be accessed and processed at any given time by all participants in the process. This industry-specific solution is expected to automate roughly 75 million processes at Austrian logistics companies per year and save twelve million sheets of paper.

Gerd Marlovits, the CEO of EDITEL Austria GmbH, explains why EDITEL has decided to actively contribute to this initiative: “Even though we don’t expect blockchain technology to replace EDI processes in the near future, this is a great opportunity for us as an EDI provider to gain important insight and to use existing synergies. We plan to rely on this experience for our future solutions,” he said. The managing director of GS1 Austria, Gregor Herzog, is also positive that “this technology for saving data has disruptive potential for logistics and supply chain management. Any associated developments are therefore highly relevant for GS1 Austria, given our function as a data hub. We look forward to sharing our expertise and being part of this process.”

• Blockchain Initiative Logistik: first use case is the digitization of shipping documents
• this industry-specific solution is expected to automate roughly 75 million processes at Austrian logistics companies per year and save twelve million sheets of paper
• Participants at the launch are EDITEL Austria, GS1 Austria, DB Schenker, LKW Walter, Bundesvereinigung Logistik Österreich (BVL) and the Vienna University of Economics and Business; additional partners to follow soon
• This industry-specific blockchain-based solution has been designed to reduce costs, increase transparency, protect against forgeries and save time and resources
• Following an analysis and pilot phase in 2019, the project is expected to result in the creation of a commercial platform