Low-code in logistics: optimization options and opportunities

Logistics is the important interface between suppliers, manufacturing and distribution. Mit Globalisierung und Digitalisierung gehen auf diesem Gebiet unzählige Chancen einher, doch auch Herausforderungen. To meet multi-layered market demands and remain competitive, companies need the ability to identify potential disruptors before they occur and respond quickly. With logistics optimization via low-code application, you gain agility and keep an eye on all processes. This enables you to react in time even in the case of unforeseeable events and to adapt your value chain to new requirements.

Transport and logistics processes are becoming increasingly complex, with new supply chains, developments and challenges constantly emerging. Treading water and forsaking innovation will most likely have a negative impact on your competitiveness. Especially in today’s networked and digitalized world. Recent years have shown that even global trade can experience delays – whether political or pandemic. Digitize and optimize your logistics processes, stay dynamic and have the chance to detect and adjust disruptions in the process flow at an early stage. This will result in numerous advantages for you:

You …

… gain a competitive advantage.
… always have an overview of your supply chain and can optimize your transport and logistics processes at any time.
… get the chance to react directly to changing requirements via real-time insight.
… simplify processes, obtain reliable forecasts and improve productivity.
… achieve a new level of agility, enabling you to react quickly even to unexpected disruptions and reschedule if necessary.
… analyze your peak times and can thus anticipate quickly so that deliveries reach your customers on time.

With logistics optimization via low-code, you gain planning reliability, even in uncertain times. It also pays to improve and digitize not only external operations, but also internal transport, picking and packing processes. This gives you a good insight into all processes and allows you to benefit from numerous automation options as well as useful analyses. This not only helps you make decisions – for new supply chains, equipment or improved workflows – but also supports your employees in the form of workload reduction and user-friendly applications. It also pays to use applications that have offline capabilities. This means you can use them without the Internet. This pays off not only within your field service, but also during picking and on the transport route.

Medium-sized companies in particular often shy away from taking the step into digitization. This is mainly due to the feared effort and high costs that such IT developments entail. The solution in many cases is: Low-code. Programming is based on the modular principle and drag-and-drop. The entire application creation process requires only a few lines of code and can therefore, by and large, be completed without the involvement of IT.

For this purpose, you deploy so-called Citizen Developers in your logistics and transport departments, who have specialist knowledge of the respective task areas. Technical interest is also an advantage, but advanced IT knowledge is not necessary.

No matter whether for data evaluation, for summarizing tracking systems or for an overview of all goods deliveries: With the automation that comes with it, your company saves time and money. In addition, all employees benefit from increased productivity. This means that in the future, deliveries will not only be faster, but also more trouble-free and agile. Even if a company’s logistics defy precise planning due to many factors, with supply chain management optimization you are prepared in the event of sudden disruptions.

When developing using low-code, you access existing elements, modules and templates, which you can customize entirely according to your requirements. At the same time, you get the possibility to create standalone components and share them with others. Often, all you need to do is configure your own data and you can already start customizing. In contrast to app development using conventional programming – which can take several months – you can realize an extensive application with low-code within just a few weeks or even days. Updates and changes usually cost you only minutes, or a few hours.

A particular sticking point and limiting time factor in application development is the collaboration between business and IT. But we also took this into account when developing our low-code platform. Appollo is the only low-code application in the world to have integrated business analysis and requirements engineering. This makes the transition to low-code implementation seamless and without media discontinuity. Normally, applications can thus be realized up to ten times faster than with conventional programming. This allows you to optimize your logistics processes in no time at all.

With low-code supported logistics optimization, you gain numerous advantages. For example, the technical experts from the respective departments and the employees who work with them on a daily basis can develop the applications directly. This makes everything as practical and user-friendly as possible. In addition, you save the time-consuming detour via an internal or external IT specialist. This reduces your costs both during development and in the long term in terms of the IT infrastructure required for test environments, maintenance and updates. At the same time, you benefit from shorter deployment times.

Whatever the logistical functional area, be it procurement, production, distribution or disposal, innovative app development pays off: with shorter release cycles, you are always one step ahead of your competitors. But that’s not all by a long shot. The main advantages of low-code development are here:

• Flexible and fast.
  You don’t have to spend a lot of time programming the applications, but simply arrange the appropriate building blocks using the LEGO principle via drag-and-drop. This makes you incredibly flexible when it comes to quick adjustments.

• You are in control
  No matter how many transport processes and supply chains you bring together in your company: With the applications you develop using Appollo’s Low-Code Platform, you keep a precise overview of each of them. You’re in control and can see what’s going where and where disruptions are occurring.

• Support for decision making
  Numerous analysis tools and the ability to integrate third-party applications make logistics improvement with Appollo so rewarding. The data sets collected and graphically processed in the process not only help you with daily routines, but also with decision-making as well as financial or economic aspects.

• Enormous agility
  Learning by doing: as you optimize your logistics processes, your employees will keep coming up with ideas on how to further improve the apps. In contrast to traditional app development via IT, your subject matter experts and so-called citizen developers will simply make the changes themselves in the future – within the shortest possible time, without months of tinkering and cumbersome updating.

• Prepared for change
  By optimizing processes using low-code applications, you often not only see potential disruptive factors coming, but can also react to them quickly. For example, you can react incredibly quickly to a supply chain breakdown and change the processes directly to ensure the smooth running of your supply chain.

Not every low-code platform is suitable for every business. To ensure that the type of development actually offers the great added value, you must make sure that it is not a limiting factor. This may be the case, for example, if you plan to integrate even more complex functions in the future that cannot be represented by the chosen low-code platform. In addition, with Citizen Development you must ensure that you establish the necessary governance and important controlling mechanisms. Only then can you guarantee short ramp-up times and, in particular, secure applications.

Especially in the transport and logistics sector, it is essential that the low-code platform has exception handling and can therefore distinguish between functional and technical errors. In addition, the application validates its consistent use. If this is not the case, the risk of unnoticed error situations increases, which can result in considerable economic damage for your company. Therefore, let us advise you extensively and without obligation. We know what is best for your logistics optimization.

In recent years, the transport and logistics industry has changed immensely. It is increasingly oriented away from the product-oriented and towards the service-oriented business model. This includes several factors, especially many different and exponentially increasing data, tracking and sensor technology topics to be shared – between all parties involved, worldwide.

This increases the demands on individual processes, which simply cannot be handled without digitization. Low-code is the ideal solution in many cases. It allows you to map the visualization of your supply chain and create digital twins for your logistics warehouses. This also increases the potential uses for artificial intelligence, for example in warehouse management or in fault clearance processes. In addition, there are opportunities to consider unforeseeable events in advance thanks to innovative analyses.

For all these applications, and even for complex vertical transport and logistics solutions. Through the no-code integration of Industrial Internet of Things – IIoT, the Appollo Low-Code Platform provides the basis.

If you would like to optimize your transport and logistics processes and benefit from the advantages mentioned, it is worth considering an alternative to conventional IT programming. Do you have questions and are you interested in a low-code app solution? Contact us, we will be happy to advise you!