Sustainable logistics 4.0 according to IDEA

IDEA presented the "SUSTAINABLE LOG 4.0" project in October 2022 for call for proposals led by ADEME, aimed at supporting initiatives that contribute to accelerating the "digitalisation and decarbonisation of mobility". This project offers a method and digital decision support environment aimed at combining both operational ADN environmental peroformance improvement in the logisitics chain. 

Focused on data processing challenges for operational purposes, this project is the result of 18 months of research and development, with the aim of deploying the tool at production sites by 2025.

Jean-Baptiste Bernicot, Innovation Director at IDEA : 

"Over the past few years, we've been experiencing at shifting industrial landscape that compels us to approach our proffesion differently. The instability in the execution conditions of logitistics and transport operations paradoxically requires demonstrating trajectories of improvement to limit environmental impacts. Implementing this type of transformation project over time requires regularly recalculating the expected efficiency.

Therefore, it was necessary to push the analysis and modelling processes to the right level of maturity and to master environmental impact calculation methodologies in order to seek support from ADEM."

PLACING OPERATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES ON EQUAL FOOTING

The project's ambition is to ensure that logisticians can guarantee the efficiency of flows and simultaneously manage economic (in euros) and environmental (in CO2 equivalent tons) performance in a demonstrable, contextualised, and shared manner over time. 

SUSTAINABLE LOG 4.0 focuses on :
• Retrieving and processing useful data from the field and customer and IDEA information systems,
• Modeling this data based on current and future load assumptions, all validated by ADEME,
• Providing operational staff with indicators alerts, and decision-making support tools in a suitable digital environment to take the right initiatives (simulation), track them, and share them (open data) with the customer.

DATA FOR MORE SUSTAINABLE LOGISTICS 4.0

IDEA's R&D phase identified the opportunities brought by data science and articial intelligence and operationally tested them by integrating appropriate skills and tools. 

The first key to sucess factor was defining what efficiency means for a complex supply chain activity. The experimentation focused on scope representing an annual turnover of 4 millions euros and approximately 700 TCO2e per year. IDEA divided the scope into four components to manage both the economic and environmental dimensions :
• Transports efficiency : trucks arrive full and at the right frequency, are pooled for local flows, and IDEA's fleet is gradually decarbonised.
• Packing efficiency : packing optimises transport (stackable), generates minimal waste, is ergonomic, and contributes to storage densification.
•Logisitics efficiency : energy consumption in the warehouse decreases, storage is densified and optimised based on turnover, stock coverages decrease, and staff is optimised (including the carbon impact of commuting).
• Waste efficiency : waste sorting increases, volumes decrease, and feet into recycling channels.

For each of these components, IDEA defined the necessary data sources, whether existing or to be created, and implemented new generation processing. In order to uphold our commitments, regardless of industrial developments, we must maintain a "trajectory logic". Therefore IDEA integrates customer load data (its activity) to calibrate simulation models that predispose future logistics digital twins.

SUPPORT FROM LOCAL AND REGIONAL PARTNERS 

In a common good logic, the logisitics company undertakes to share its experience with territorial networks such as EMC2, PASCA, or ADN Ouest. IDEA also chooses to collaborate with local service providers, some of which are already partners and/or providers for the logisitics company  :

• Akajoule : energy efficiency and renewable energy consultancy based in Saint-Nazaire (44). It provides regular support to IDEA in the carrying out its carbon assessments and defining its methodologies through the Datajoule open data pltaform (2021).
• Zozio : this digital solution, through the geolocation of handling equipment, allows for characterising the efficiency of flows, relieving operators and managers of time-consuming and repetitive analysis times.

WHAT IS ADEM's CALL FOR PROPOSALS "PIA - LOGISTICS 4.0" ?

Its is part of strategy to accelerate Logistics 4.0, particularly to "optimise, secure, and decarbonise mass transport and multimodal interfaces". This development meets the challenges of improving the competitiveness of the logisitcs chain in France and controlling its environment impact. With this support, IDEA, receives funding equivalent to 25% of the project's estimated cost, estimated at 21 million euros.

CHALLENGES IN LINE WITH IDEA'S STRATEGIC AMBITION FOR 2025

In line with IDEA's overall strategy, the SUSTAINABLE LOG 4.0 project addresses two main challenges of the 2025 strategic plan :
• Environnmental : detailing the carbon footprint of the IDEA group (estimated at 20,000 TCO2e per year) to identify and prioritise actions to reduce it by 8% annually. Beyond environmental performance, this strategic plan aims to familiarise IDEA teams and its customers with  sustainable development issues. 

• Economic : managing warehouse rotation data, supply chain networks perfomance (flows by supplier typology) to ensure productivity gains of 2 to 3% per year, at equivalent turnover.

Furetheremore, the project aims to integrate new proffesions based on new skills, logisitics device modelling, and performance management within IDEA organisations. It will create new service offerings for customers and their suppliers (consulting, auditing, master plan construction, support for procurement and purchasing functions, ect.).

Jean-Baptiste Bernicot concludes : "We are proud to be winner of this call for proposals, confirming the strengh of our innovation roadmap. After receiving support for automation and digitalisation in 2021 from the BPI (Public Investment Bank), the acceleration continues on data and energy transition axes over the next 24 months. With this project, we aim to demonstrate that it is possible, with the IDEA teams and those of our customers, to create digital solutions for the future that are both efficient, innovative, and sustainable, to invent logistics fo tomorrow."