Mannheim, 11.08.2024 – Great success for the Mannheim-based IT start-up: Loady wins the German Startup Cup. Our COO Elzbieta Wiankowska impressed both the jury and the audience with her pitch and secured the Startup Cup.
Photo 1: from left to right Victor Kaupe (BASF Coatings), Elzbieta Wiankowska (Loady) and Gerd Große (GFFT)
This year’s Symposium for Logistics and Production took place on 6 November 2024 at BASF Coatings in Münster. The prize is awarded annually by the Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Forschungstransfers (GFFT) under the direction of Gerd Große.
Loady, along with startups Logistikbude and s2 data, reached the final in the Smart Logistics category. Our COO, Elzbieta Wiankowska, impressed both the jury and the audience with her pitch and secured the startup trophy with 43% of the votes. This award once again shows that Loady can create added value for efficient data management in the logistics ecosystem by enabling the management and exchange of logistics requirements in a simple and structured way.
The German Startup Cup, organised by the Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Forschungstransfers e.V. (GFFT), awards prizes for innovative business ideas in various categories. The competition honours start-ups that not only provide new impetus with their approaches, but also actively contribute to promoting the innovation landscape in Germany.
Loady is now officially part of the Microsoft Founders Hub for startups.
This partnership brings us closer to our goal in the world of digital logistics: "making logistics easier."
Microsoft Founders Hub for startups supports Loady in harnessing the unlimited potential of AI through direct access to the latest AI models.
Moreover, as partners, we receive personalized and expert guidance on AI and Cloud based solutions.
Mannheim, 20.06.2024 – Our new partnership with Microsoft for Startups brings us numerous benefits. The platform allows us free and discounted use of services like Microsoft 365, Azure, or Visual Studio. Powerful AI solutions like Azure OpenAI Service with security and compliance benefits will support and drive our efforts in optimizing and expanding our technological innovation landscape.
Abb. 1: Dennis Jantos (CTO of Loady GmbH)
“By joining the Founders Hub we are committing to our strategy to build our logistics platform on top of the Microsoft ecosystem like the Azure cloud with highest security and compliance standards to offer the best experience for our users and developers“, says Dennis Jantos, CTO of Loady.
Loady focuses on supporting transport logistics operations with reliable loading and unloading information through our “Master Data Sharing Platform.” This platform serves as a critical foundation for enhancing digital collaboration and automation within supply chains. Leveraging Microsoft Azure tools and services ensures we prioritize user-friendly experiences, bolster security measures, and promote data privacy, transparency, and trust. These elements are essential in meeting and exceeding the expectations of our customers and partners regarding service quality and reliability.
Loady dives into Artificial Intelligence
Loady’s AI transformation is just beginning. With Microsoft on our side, we are well-positioned to expand our presence in the international market. We look forward to what this membership will bring in terms of new developments and advancements.
About Loady Loady is an intelligent platform for standardized logistics requirements. Acting as the Single Source of Truth that shippers, goods receivers, and carriers can rely on, Loady facilitates seamless collaboration among shippers, goods receivers, and carriers through a sophisticated synchronization model. This enables true digital integration within supply chain logistics. Loady features API interfaces integrated with key logistics systems and provides multilingual online views tailored for carriers and drivers.
Moreover, Loady enhances the transport of bulk and liquid products through a central database for pre-product restrictions and cleaning requirements.
Finally, the decade-old problem of relevant information hidden in free text fields and in people’s heads is solved: Loady 1.0 is released. From now on, companies can maintain their site-specific and product-related logistics requirements in an adequate platform and then securely share their data with business and logistics partners along the entire transportation process: from freight procurement, freight ordering, transportation planning and dispatching, to actual delivery.
Loady is a single source of truth for logistics requirements to shippers, carriers and customers.
What’s in for industrial companies?
Loady offers companies a unique platform to enter and maintain company’s logistics requirements and to build end-to-end transport lanes connecting their products to the loading points at theirs sites with the unloading points at the customers’ sites.
Then they can assign their logistic service providers to the respective data sets of a lane.
Feature overview:
Standardized data model with modular approach fitting needs of small companies, large industrial and even complex chemical sites and parcs
Intuitive user interface to enter more than 100 requirements in a clear structure: from site restrictions, parking instructions and opening hours to safety instructions, logistics equipment and processes to follow.
As a special Goodie for bulk transportation Loady contains a central data base for managing preloading restrictions and cleaning requirements.
Predefined value selection, reducing any kind of free texts to an absolute minimum
Multilingual data base: German, English and Polish are already available. Spanish follows in December, others to come in 2023
Possibility to manage customer’s requirements while they are not managed by the customers themselves
Create order-related access to driver view “Loady2Go”
Communicate changes to business and logistics partners
Integration with ERP / TMS / Yard Management via API
What’s in for logistics service providers
With Loady, for the first time in logistics, carriers will be able to get precise information on logistics requirements directly from their customers.
Access requirements of authorized transport lanes
Create order-related access to driver view “Loady2Go”
Integration with ERP / TMS via API
Loady driver view "Loady2Go"
Use cases supported by Loady:
Logistics tender management and service offering
End2end understanding of requirements for easier dispatching
More flexibility to deploy drivers, independent from their language skills & knowhow
More reliable service execution at higher quality
Clear rules for data ownership and governance
Loady is a neutral and secure partner platform where companies can manage and exchange logistics requirements. In Loady, data is owned and governed by the companies themselves. Data protection applies the rules of GDPR, data security follows the standard of ISO 27001.
Achievements of our pilot phase
Starting the Loady pilot phase in June 2022, the first industrial customers like BASF and Evonik entered by now more than 20 European sites, 30 loading and unloading points and 25 products.
Now they are building their first transport lanes and assigning them to their logistics service providers to test Loady2Go.
The first API integrations with their Transport Management Systems and Yard Management Systems are planned to take place in Q1 2023.
Future roadmap
The Loady roadmap is being defined very closely together with an expert user community assigned by our industrial and logistics customers. Beside the constant evaluation and improvement of Loady, further features that are designed to make the basic processes even easier to use.
Loady is a standardized platform for reliable loading and unloading requirements. By enabling the effective communication of logistics specifications along the supply chain network, Loady optimizes the entire B2B transportation process: from freight procurement, freight ordering, transportation planning and dispatching, to actual delivery.
The idea of Loady is simple: companies maintain their site-specific and product-related logistics requirements in Loady and then securely share them with their business and logistics partners for their respective operations. Of course, industrial companies and logistics service providers can also access Loady via API. This allows them to integrate reliable logistics requirements from Loady directly into their operational systems and processes.
Of special interest for liquid bulk logistics is the long due solution of a general, centralized pre-product database where cleaning instructions and pre-loading restrictions can be managed and shared.
Loady fundamentally improves supply chain collaboration. Loady helps minimize truck rejections and increases planning reliability and sustainability in transportation. But above all, by providing a single source of truth for requirements, Loady will, finally, end the current practice of back-and-forth phone calls, data double checks and continuous troubleshooting that all parties involved are suffering from.
Our platform closes a fundamental gap in communication, making it a key success factor for further digitization and automation in logistics.
The problems that Loady is finally solving were already known 35 years ago. “Auf Achse”, a well-known board game from the 80s, allowed the team to experience many of the frustrating experiences in transportation first-hand.
Last Monday, Dennis Jantos, Elzbieta Wiankowska, Waldemar Waigel and our new colleague Vicente Manuel Suárez Silva played a game of “On the Move” after work. The classic board game — Game of the Year 1987 — is about transportation services and trucks. For us, this is an interesting opportunity to explore the feeling of road freight transport in the 80s in a fun and relaxed way.
What is “On the Move” about?
To win the game, you must make the biggest profit by accepting and completing transport orders. In order to fulfill the orders, you send your truck off to pick up goods. He then delivers the goods to the cities that are named on behalf.
But the road to successful delivery involves obstacles such as traffic jams, blocked roads and the actions of other players. Just like in real life, there are random events that have positive or negative effects on the outcome of the game.
The event cards in particular show that decades-old problems in the logistics sector are more relevant today than ever before.
Change the Game: With Loady, you run into fewer problems and become more efficient
With “Auf Achse”, we made surprising observations and it was a great feeling that we were bringing a fundamental improvement to the industry with Loady. In fact, it will never be the same again: the negative effects of the event cards would not happen this way with Loady, while the positive events represent a normal, not even significant occurrence.
“Win an extra turn”: Quick loading success factor
Fast charging increases transport efficiency, reduces truck downtime and makes it possible to carry out more trips with existing resources. We knew that back in 1987.
What is astonishing is that in 2022, the most common reasons for many truck rejections are still the following:
No really reliable sources for up-to-date and verified information about (unloading) at the destination of transport
Lack of documentation or equipment and, as a result, unnecessary waiting times
Manual troubleshooting and finding solutions: by email, telephone, fax, involving 14-16 people in extreme cases
Communication difficulties and misunderstandings due to language barriers
Benefits for shippers, customers and logistics service providers
Loady counteracts the above mentioned reasons for delay. And in a very simple way: Loady is a platform that is maintained by shippers and customers and makes reliable, up-to-date information on loading and unloading requirements easily accessible.
Loady is a standard in industry and simplifies the entire transport system, from freight purchase to freight order, transport planning and scheduling, to actual delivery.
“Go 1-3 additional fields”: Highly motivated drivers through better information and organization
One of the current main problems facing the logistics sector is the increasing shortage of drivers. There are already 450,000 truck drivers missing in Europe, a number that will double or even triple over the next 5-10 years.
The main reasons are poor working conditions, waiting times and the high level of frustration when dealing with organizational aspects of the job.
Loady makes the driver's job attractive again
Loady communicates the requirements of the respective locations at an early stage. This includes information in particular, which may not be relevant to the contract but is extremely important for local drivers. Where can I park, what facilities are there, what are the processes at each gate and establishment? Loady now provides drivers with the “Loady2Go” mobile view. Loady also overcomes language barriers, as it is already available in various European languages. This means fewer waiting times and fewer unexpected events — and, of course, fewer nerve-wracking clarifications and discussions with site personnel or plant security. Overall, the potential for frustration for the driver and everyone else involved is drastically reduced.
Bonus order: Because of your good reputation for timely and smooth delivery, your customer directly places an additional order with you
With Loady, there are fewer rejections: companies and freight forwarders increase their reliability.
If you gain the trust of your customers as a supplier or logistics service provider, that means in most cases that you will receive more orders. With Loady, your company is more trustworthy and reliable than your competition. Your customers will want to work with you. This goes hand in hand with more cooperative business relationships and more attractive pricing options.
After three games, “Auf Achse” taught us a few lessons:
Loady helps all partners in the logistics industry: Drivers are more motivated by better organization of processes; transport service providers can carry out their transports more reliably through faster and easier loading and unloading, while making more optimal use of their resources. Customers and supply chain managers receive more timely and reliable deliveries.
In the 1980s, there was no solution to these problems. Only with increasing digitalization can a platform like Loady enable such an interaction of business and logistics partners.
If Loady had existed as a standard 35 years ago, there would be other event cards and other random factors for “On the move.” The entire logistics sector would be better interlinked and the efficiency of logistics processes would be higher.
For our team, it was valuable experience that our product solves challenges that were identified decades ago and we are now more than ever convinced that Loady is changing communication in the entire logistics industry for the better and that the platform itself is becoming an international standard.
