Deutsche Post World Net opens future lab DHL Innovation Center
Deutsche Post World Net opened the DHL Innovation Center in Troisdorf near Bonn today. The goal and mission of the DHL Innovation Center are to develop marketable, highly innovative products from logistics trends of the future. In addition, the laboratory of the future forms an umbrella organization for all areas of technical innovation management that the company has been exploring. The laboratory of the future plays a key role in the Group’s strategy, with which Deutsche Post World Net as the No. 1 company in the global logistics market intends to become the world’s most innovative logistics company.
Chairman Dr. Klaus Zumwinkel stressed this in his address at the opening ceremony: “Today, we are the largest logistics company in the world. But size alone is no measure of success. What counts is our customers’ satisfaction. This is why we will amaze our customers with even newer and more future-oriented products.”
Prominent speakers at the opening ceremony
The main speaker at the opening ceremony of the DHL Innovation Center in Troisdorf was Jeremy Rifkin. The American scientist who concerns with his work the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment has been influential in shaping public policy in the United States and around the world. Rifkin is the founder and president of The Foundation on Economic Trends. A further speaker at the ceremony was the premier of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Dr. Jürgen Rüttgers. Rüttgers, was Germany’s national minister of education, science, research and technology from 1994 to 1998.
The projects at the DHL Innovation Center are being conducted jointly with partners. The innovation partners from the business world include IBM, Intel and SAP. The DHL Innovation Center also maintains research partnerships with the logistics institutes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston and Zaragoza, and the German Fraunhofer institutes. About 20 permanent employees are working on innovation projects in the center. An additional 10 jobs are filled by employees from the innovation and research partners.
Showroom and conference area
Besides serving as a laboratory of the future, the DHL Innovation Center performs two other functions. For visitors, the center has a showroom where they can see the interrelationship of global product streams and logistics networks. World-spanning networks can be visualized on a round table that serves as a projection screen, enabling customers to examine individual streams of goods and information. In the exhibition area, prototypes of current development projects are set up. The projects include a robot that can unload delivery vehicles, and that can recognize different sized packages, pick them up and place them on a conveyor belt. In addition to the laboratory and showroom, the DHL Innovation Center has a conference area. With this concept, Deutsche Post World Net is breaking new ground. No other logistics company has a facility that can compare to the DHL Innovation Center.
