Logistics Service Map Prototype

Concentration on core competencies in logistics requires collaboration between logistics service providers in order to fulfill complex customer demands. The increasing demand for flexibility in logistics is facing the heterogeneity of the providers. This creates a challenging field for planning complex supply chains. Logistics integrators are meeting this challenge. One main issue is the retrieval of the services available in the logistics network and their combination for planning complex supply chains. The prototype presented in this paper supports the retrieval by providing a customizable domain-specific dimension concept for structuring services. With the help of the dimensions and a customizable domain-specific template scheme, a dynamic matrix is created in order to facilitate the retrieval of services matching the selected dimensions. After retrieval, the services can be combined on a canvas via drag and drop in order to plan complex services and simultaneously create both their BPMN diagram and corresponding XML file.