Logistics is a multi-player business which has changed
significantly in the last decade. The changes are driven by
several factors, e.g. by smaller batch sizes (because of cus-
tomization and individual orders) or by technological changes
(RFID). Information technology becomes an integral part of
logistics and helps in lowering costs. The change to a more
decentralised control of logistic processes and application of
information technology in logistics is the topic of the inter-
disciplinary research project CRC637 [1].
Within this project researchers are also studying the ap-
plication of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in logistics,
i.e. transport of food. Fig. 1 shows one application scenario,
where WSN nodes are attached to goods (mostly food because
of their perishable nature). The goods are loaded from a
warehouse to a freight vehicle, in which their nodes need to
self-organize and form a network of nodes, which can deliver
information of the goods’ state to the outside world using a
gateway (e.g. a telematic unit).
WSN as information source is enabler for a new type of
logistics, e.g. dynamic FEFO (first expire, first out). Contrary
to the currently employed FEFO strategy which uses static
best before dates, dynamic FEFO takes the real best before
dates into account using information acquired during storage
and transport. As the supervision of goods in transport is
mandatory and even standards exist for temperature loggers
[2], the usage of WSNs and their dynamic data enable an
even more sophisticated logistics.
The improvements by a better food transport logistic are
among others the reduction of food scrap, improved food
quality and better visibility of risks along the food transport
chain. The additionally acquired information can be fed into
production planning systems for further data mining.