Engineering, Procurement and Construction Breakbulk & Project Cargo
Fragmented data and systems are holding back digitalization in the project cargo industry. Kirsten Lehmann DHL Group fragmentation has been one of the biggest challenges to digitalization.
Early partnership is crucial, but shippers and forwarders are often at different stages of the digitalization journey.
“ If a shipper’ s goal, focus and stage in the digitalization journey are much further along than the forwarder or other suppliers, it becomes very difficult to get on the same page,” Aurich said.“ On large projects, implementation moves quickly, so if you are not aligned as partners from the start, you may not have the time to get where you need to be.” Many systems don’ t interact.“ You have a variety of systems across the supply chain, but they don’ t necessarily talk to each other,” she said.“ Getting them to a point where they can communicate with each other takes significant investment, resources and time.”
Aurich said there is a big gap between“ wanting to be digital” and being ready and able to get there,“ and that’ s from both sides.”
Another issue is data quality.“ Is the data clean? Where is that source of truth? Can we trust the data?” she said.“ A shipper may provide a certain set of data, while the forwarder has another, and aligning those is critical.”
A lack of expertise is also a factor. You can’ t just hire a data analyst, she said; you need people who are experts in, or at least understand, project logistics and the complexities of the supply chain.
Whether a company hires a project logistics specialist and trains them in data analytics, or does things the other way around,“ either way it takes time, investment, and real commitment,” said Aurich.
“ First, look internally,” she said.“ Do we already have people who understand project logistics and might be interested in moving into a data analyst’ s role? If not, we
need to be more open-minded when we are hiring data analysts or technology specialists. Can they learn and grow in a project logistics environment? Are they willing to put in the time?”
‘ Honesty and trust’
Young emphasized giving the right tools and support to logisticians who are being“ turned into” data analysts.“ You need to understand logistics, what you want to discover, what the trends are telling you,” he said.
An effective strategy requires working with logistics service providers willing to partner on a digitalization journey, even if that might uncover some uncomfortable truths, Young added.
“ They must be willing to provide data even if it’ s not‘ flattering’ to their own performance,” he said.“ Fundamentally, it’ s about honesty and trust, and the relationship you have with them.”
The accumulation and analysis of data can drive business decisions and, more importantly, define strategy, said Young. Performance metrics can encompass areas such as container utilization, on-time status, detention, and damage ratios. Data can be used to measure logistics services providers’ performance in an ongoing project, to inform a new competitive bid, or to benchmark projects internally.
Monitoring costs, volumes, locations and durations helps to identify trends and be more predictive. Consolidating data can enable accurate planning of site resources weeks in advance, including laydown allocation, labor and equipment, avoiding a scenario in which 20 people and six all-terrain cranes arrive on site when 10 and two, respectively, would suffice.
“ A project trending the wrong way on pick-up times indicates a problem with the supplier, the logistics service
14 Journal of Commerce | September 2025 www. joc. com