The Company Story of LogistikPlan

• Almost “on the side,” the LogistikPlan team achieved the highest-revenue financial year in the company’s history to date. Our customers in classic factory planning in 2019 included high-tech companies such as Yamaichi Electronics, the semiconductor suppliers Freiberger Compound Materials and AMTC, as well as the measuring equipment manufacturers Wavelabs and Megger. At the same time, we further expanded our position as specialist planners for the chemical industry—with projects for the welding technology specialist Elektro-Thermit (Goldschmidt Group) and for Addinol (high-performance lubricants) in the Leuna chemical park.
  
  
• Demanding project tasks were also on the agenda in 2019 for long-standing LogistikPlan customers such as Menarini Arzneimittel and Wacker Chemie. For the future-oriented development of plant sites, we initiated growth and centralization of internal warehouse capacities, as well as the external tendering of complete logistics services.
  
  
• Successful collaboration between consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, and logistics service providers shaped our logistics consultants’ work in the Retail & Logistics competence field—from fan merchandise logistics for FC Bayern (ITG Munich) and the e-commerce bicycle parts specialist r2-bike.com to retail logistics for Fissler, a premium cookware manufacturer with worldwide distribution.
  
  
• Amid all the work, 2019 also unexpectedly continued our joy over the German Logistics Award! The presentation of the winning project “Reload” for the digitalization of KOMSA intralogistics received great attention from industry experts—both at the traditional BVL “shoulder glance” in Hartmannsdorf and at the LogistikPlan Forum in Dresden. In May, our customer KOMSA was even honored in Brussels with the European Logistics Award—as the winner in tough competition against well-known international companies.
  
  
• Our trade fair participation in Munich was somewhat less exhilarating. The transport logistic focus on digitalization and automation fell well short of our LogiMAT experiences, due to a relatively low number of visitors. Once again, a good reason to travel to Stuttgart again in 2020!
  
  
• In parallel with the trade fair week in Bavaria, LogistikPlan’s Health Care colleagues presented a freshly printed study on hospital logistics at med.Logistica in Leipzig. It shows how far theory and practice still diverge in hospitals. We were able to demonstrate how well innovation and tradition can work together, at least with a warehouse and material flow concept for the global central laboratory of DKMS. We implemented the sophisticated intralogistics for gene analysis at the DKMS Life Science Lab—in direct proximity to Dresden’s historic Albertinum—right in the vault room of a former Bundesbank building.

2018 was a year of strong development and awards for LogistikPlan—with solid growth in all three competence fields:

• In Industry & High Tech, we started, among other things, greenfield planning for a new factory building with our new customer Yamaichi Electronics (Munich, Frankfurt/Oder). At the same time, one of our longest-standing customers, Wacker Chemie AG, commissioned us with strategic logistics projects for plants in Bavaria and Saxony.
• In Retail & Logistics, we planned a modern logistics center in Saxony for the TransPak Group: in the future, packaging logistics for eastern and central Germany can successfully grow at the Döbeln site, starting with 8,000 m² of storage space.
• New customers also shaped our work in Health Care: for DKMS—the German bone marrow donor center—we planned the intralogistics of the new global central laboratory in Dresden, and at University Hospital Dresden (UKD), LogistikPlan developed the concept for expanding the central hospital warehouse.

Modern hospital logistics:

• Our development in the Health Care competence field was also reflected at the traditional LogistikPlan Forum—in 2018, for the first time in dialogue with the health-care sector. Under the motto “Human 4.0? On digital transformation in hospitals and logistics”, entrepreneurs, professors, and logisticians discussed hospital & robotics, society & health together with hospital logisticians in Dresden.
  
  
• In autumn, Leipzig hosted another new network format—initiated by Wirtschaftsförderung Sachsen and Krankenhausgesellschaft Sachsen: a Hospital Logistics Project Workshop formed a working group to jointly launch logistics innovations and pilot projects with hospitals.

Growth in southern Germany:

• Since 2018, our digitalization competencies have been strengthened with the new LogistikPlan partner office in Munich. In addition to expert consulting on the selection and implementation of logistics IT systems, Christoph Groß now supports our customer relations on site in southern Germany.
  
  
• LogistikPlan also developed well in Baden-Württemberg: almost 600 stand visitors at the LogiMAT trade fair and around 120 enthusiastic listeners at TradeWorld underline the positive result. The consequence: new warehouse planning projects and seminars in Stuttgart and the Black Forest…

Exemplary digital logistics:

• The highlight of the year for LogistikPlan and our long-standing client KOMSA was the award of the German Logistics Award 2018 in Berlin. The award recognized the concept of consistently integrating warehouse automation and logistics digitalization into the planning of a complex logistics center. LogistikPlan supported the project Reload – Digitalization of KOMSA intralogistics from site strategy through warehouse planning to commissioning.

• LogistikPlan expands its service portfolio with a new building block for know-how transfer: seminars and in-house trainings for specialists and managers from industry, trade, and logistics. Participants include managing directors, department heads, and team leaders who want to expand their technical and methodological competence, e.g. logistics, shipping, and warehouse managers, production and assembly managers, as well as those responsible for SCM, purchasing, inventory management, IT, and controlling.

• At the beginning of the year, LogistikPlan once again receives the CAP quality seal from Switzerland’s Cardea AG for its consulting quality. The basis for recertification is the results of an independent direct survey of our customers from the previous two years.
  
  
• In parallel with completing the award procedure for Berlin’s hospital group Vivantes, we add the new specialist field Facility Management to our factory planning services. In addition to tendering FM services—comparable to logistics outsourcing—we also offer integrated planning of site-related logistics, facility, and service functions for industrial operations as well as hospitals.
  
  
• In May, Stefan Gärtner—after almost ten years as BVL regional group spokesperson in Saxony—hands over the baton to the new speaker team. In recognition of his commitment, he receives the BVL silver honorary pin.
  
  
• In September, the new LogistikPlan website goes live. The focus of our fundamentally revised presence is the comprehensive overview of all services, newly configured across the business fields Consulting, Planning, and Management.
  
  
• Especially helpful for the curious: with a single click, our extensive references can now also be filtered by industry and specialist field.

• From symptom to diagnosis to improvement, it doesn’t have to be a long road: with the Logistics Quick Check—a new LogistikPlan analysis tool—we create a rapid assessment of a company’s logistics, including a KPI check and an optimization plan.
  
  
• In May, LogistikPlan is commissioned by Vivantes – Netzwerk für Gesundheit GmbH. Germany’s largest municipal hospital group (14,000 employees) operates 9 hospitals and 13 nursing homes in Berlin with more than 5,000 beds. Facility management (approx. 100 cleaning teams) is being retendered across Europe as part of an outsourcing model. Together with the expert office Uwe Schückmüller and the law firm Noerr LLP, LogistikPlan assumes specialist consulting, project management, and the award procedure.
  
  
• Our major assignment for another public-sector client—the new Campus Education Center of the Dresden Chamber of Crafts—is cancelled at the end of detailed planning. Despite multiple attempts, we are unable to persuade the Chamber to enter a mediation process to resolve inconsistencies in scope and fees. For LogistikPlan, in addition to expensive lessons learned, the key takeaway remains: in future, we must map even uncomfortable negotiation and change-order steps more carefully in our own business processes.
  
  
• We publish a new study on outsourcing in the food industry. In the analysis, LogistikPlan author Maria von Jagow arrives at the surprising conclusion that a post-evaluation of logistics outsourcing projects—even at market-leading food manufacturers—is almost never carried out systematically.
  
  
• The summer anniversary: LogistikPlan celebrates its tenth anniversary. With live music and freshly tapped Waldschlösschen beer, the company thanks all “contributors” of the first ten years. The already legendary customer reception in November celebrates the company’s development to date: in the interim balance, the LogistikPlan team presents itself as a vibrant company that—despite many economic and personnel upheavals—has positioned itself successfully in all three business fields.

• 2014 begins with very special news: LogistikPlan receives a certificate for outstanding consulting services for the first time. With the certification by Switzerland’s Cardea AG, a leading specialist for auditing and positioning consulting companies, LogistikPlan received top ratings from its customers for consulting quality and trusted collaboration .
  
  
• In March, we launch the service field Recruitment Consulting. This new LogistikPlan service supports—beyond headhunters and job portals—our long-standing customers with individualized recruitment consulting and placement. Our goal is to safeguard their project success and business development with suitable managers for logistics and production.
  
  
• New projects for long-standing and new customers strengthen our competence especially in mechanical engineering, vehicle manufacturing, trade, and logistics services. In the Health Care competence field, we win our first hospital assignment: for Vivantes Klinikum Neukölln, we develop the logistics concept for the new build of the emergency department and intensive care units.
  
  
• The year ends economically with a slump in orders, but also with a wonderful customer reception: Communication—the “hidden” success factor in corporate management? Heated debate on Frank Bornemann’s talk about Generation Y (conclusion: even if we don’t understand them, we should simply take them seriously and let them come). Equally heated debate on the presentation of the template for our new homepage (conclusion: even if we like it—this will probably never arrive).

• My Factory of the Future—under this title, LogistikPlan launches a new consulting product in 2013 for the strategic site development of SMEs. As part of a BVL colloquium, LogistikPlan presented the methodological approach for planning companies that must expand their production and storage capacity despite uncertain future data. The approach was particularly clear in a case study for Sächsisches Staatsweingut Schloss Wackerbarth—which naturally grows its own raw materials and can hardly rely on reliable harvest forecasts.
  
  
• Another important tool enters operation in the LogistikPlan toolbox: the LogistikPlan Planning Model. This calculation tool is used for capacity-oriented modeling of complex product structures, resources, and logistics volumes in the form of planning scenarios, for example in groups with multiple plant sites. This methods development marks an important milestone for the LogistikPlan business field Strategy Consulting.
  
  
• In trade and logistics services, LogistikPlan wins well-known customers such as Komsa, Pietsch and LGI, whose trusted collaboration we were able to continue in subsequent years. With new customers in pharmaceuticals and medical technology, the first foundations are created for building our Health Care competence field.

• LogistikPlan is pleased about assignments from long-standing customers in the process industry. At the same time, we increasingly succeed in acquiring new customers in central Germany (e.g. Jungheinrich Wilsdruff, Deutsche Werkstätten in Dresden, REISS in Bad Liebenwerda, WaCo in Weixdorf, SICK Engineering in Ottendorf, WEMA in Zerbst). Our geographically regional customer share in the federal states of Saxony, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Berlin rises from 10% in 2005 to around 40% by 2012.
  
  
• At the same time, we develop our industry expertise in mechanical engineering, vehicle manufacturing, metal processing, and the furniture industry.
  
  
• As focal topics of our project work, strategic site development for our customers crystallizes. Concepts for factory planning, production and warehouse planning, and transport logistics follow as classics.
  
  
• Together with MinneMedia, our long-standing marketing partner, we develop a modern corporate design and introduce our new company slogan: Inspiration - Concepts - Solutions.

   

• New large-scale assignments shape the positive business development. At Gebr. Meiser GmbH, the world’s leading manufacturer of grating, LogistikPlan plans a comprehensive expansion of the site structure at the company’s family-owned headquarters in Saarland.
  
  
• For Meiser as well as Stora Enso Sachsen GmbH, a major producer of newsprint in Eilenburg, LogistikPlan introduces truck guidance systems for the first time to optimize site logistics.
  
  
• Overall, the company experiences its most successful business year to date in 2011, thanks to numerous assignments from long-standing and new customers.
  
  
• Due to increased revenue, additional employees are hired, a new IT infrastructure is implemented, and the new office floor is set up. In November, the first LogistikPlan customer reception takes place.

• LogistikPlan becomes active for additional customers in the process industry; alongside chemicals, construction materials, and paper manufacturing, planning for new factories and site expansions are also in demand in the food industry.
  
  
• In the high-tech sector, LogistikPlan sets new priorities. Siemens AG in Berlin commissions us with logistics planning for a manufacturer of lithium batteries.
  
  For eight German solar module manufacturers, LogistikPlan prepares a study on optimizing packaging and shipping logistics.
  
  
• As a founding member of “SolarCore,” an initiative under the umbrella of Silicon Saxony e.V., LogistikPlan is involved in joint solutions to reduce costs in the photovoltaic industry—together with PV manufacturers, equipment suppliers, and institutes.

• The global financial and economic crisis leads most companies to stop numerous projects and significantly reduce external planning support.
  
  
• LogistikPlan gains new customers in the high-tech industry and in metal and plastics processing, but records revenue losses of more than 40%.
  
  
• To use the opportunity for methods research, LogistikPlan launches the R&D project KapaPlan together with an IT partner. Our goal is to develop a tool to facilitate strategic-tactical warehouse planning. With completion of the prototype and the first pilot application, we successfully conclude the project two years later. However, we simply lack the funds to continue programming it to production readiness.

• Thanks to our growing nationwide customer base, we record a 40% increase in revenue.
  
  
• With three project managers by now, the company achieves strong performance across all three business fields—logistics planning, factory planning, and realization.
  
  
• Against the backdrop of the rapidly growing solar industry, larger assignments are delivered for manufacturers of photovoltaic products.
  
  
• In the long term, well-founded logistics concepts are also becoming increasingly important for SMEs. For example, in 2008 LogistikPlan develops a strategy for site development and expanding the logistics service profile for Arendt Logistik Gruppe. A few years later, the former freight forwarder has successfully established itself as a contract logistics provider and more than doubled its warehouse space in southwestern Saxony.

• Assignments in the automotive supplier industry bring requirements for interdisciplinary, methodologically sound project work into sharper focus. For classic topics of factory planning and logistics optimization, LogistikPlan begins developing planning tools and in-house standards—from concepts for site development and modular layout planning to capacity planning and forecast modeling for warehouse logistics.
  
  
• In this way, LogistikPlan wins Takata-Petri Sachsen GmbH, a Japanese airbag manufacturer, as not only a demanding industrial customer but also a long-standing partner for collaboration in research projects.

• LogistikPlan is pleased about its first major customer assignment: planning new sites, logistics, and warehouse solutions for a chemical company in southern Germany. In subsequent years, the chemical group becomes a long-standing customer of LogistikPlan—with projects in Bavaria and Saxony, the Czech Republic, China, and the USA.
  
  
• Sächsische Zeitung takes notice of LogistikPlan and features the successful company start on its front page in March -> “Dynamo Dresden”.
  
  
• LogistikPlan publishes an industry study on transport logistics in the basic chemicals and construction materials industries—and is pleased with lively feedback in the trade press.