DHL Supply Chain

Location: Beringe, Germany

Use Cases Demonstrated:

  • Asset Tracking
  • End-to-End Tracability
  • AGVs

To DHL Supply Chain, the IoT is a critical piece of technology that enables better services for their customers and more efficient warehouse operations.  The advent of wireless networks, including 5G has allowed DHL to innovate in their product offerings and introduce new use cases into their logistics management operations.

DHL Supply Chain has established a lighthouse site at their Beringe warehouse facility in Germany.  This facility is used to establish best practice and pilot new technologies and use cases before they are rolled out globally. 

One of the use cases that DHL has successfully piloted is a system to monitor operational activities within their warehouses in real-time using IoT technologies.  Working with Cisco and Conduce, they have developed a system which allows them to visualise the operations within a warehouse through the use of heat-maps and other visualisations and reports.  By gathering the indoor positioning of various connected assets such as handheld scanners and monitoring utilisation of Materials Handling Equipment (MHE), combined with data from the Warehouse Management System to understand what tasks are being allocated to whom, DHL is able to build an accurate, real-time map of activities within the warehouse, so that they can see where assets are located, and where they are moving to.  Additionally, the system is able to improve efficiency and health & safety by giving accurate data on response rates, record any incidents and measure overall utilisation of equipment and space.

Once implemented, the system revealed valuable insights on activity peaks, warehouse layouts and processes by displaying concentrations of pickers and MHE against a backdrop of warehouse orders in real-time.

DHL supply chain continue to innovate and experiment with improving the digital supply chain through the use of private networks and IoT sensors to track, trace and record the position and status of packages with innovations such as the Thermonet network, which is able to record temperature of sensitive life sciences shipments through international transport lanes, meaning that DHL’s customers are able to optimise their packaging requirements and DHL can provide assurance of end-to-end trackability of environmental conditions.

DHL Supply China are also experimenting with robotics and AGVs in their warehouses, which are proving a challenging, dynamic environment full of constantly moving MHE, packages and personnel.  Automating the warehouse distribution system allows significant savings in staffing costs and allows space to be completely optimised for AGV only transport.

Read more: DHL Supply Chain unveils Strategy 2025: “Innovation and digitalization will help us to put people and customers first.”

Supporting Partners:



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