Fresh Logistics Polska is the Innovative Company 2022

Fresh Logistics Polska has once again been honoured by Gazeta Finansowa with the title of the Innovative Company. This time the company was recognised for promoting paperless logistics.

In the era of digitalization and automation, the speed of information flow is crucial regardless of the industry or size of the company. Growing market demands cause that the electronic data interchange between individual links in the supply chain is no longer just a good practice but a standard. That is why Fresh Logistics Polska and GS1 Polska have taken actions aimed at building awareness and popularization of process standardization through the implementation and promotion of the Paperless Model.

Every day, companies in Poland handle hundreds of thousands of deliveries, each of which is accompanied by at least several paper documents. They are a bottleneck because they are prone not only to getting lost, but also to errors. The digitisation of the goods delivery process as part of the pilot implementation of the Paperless Model in the supply chain was expected to eliminate these problems through the use of DESADV and RECADV messages.

The Paperless Model, based on GS1 standards, is a series of electronic EDI messages exchanged by supply chain partners and linked to a GS1 logistics label physically present on pallets or other logistics units. In other words, it is the abandonment of paper documents accompanying processes throughout the supply chain and their replacement with a digital version. In this way, Partners can deliver shipments efficiently, without risk, and with care for the environment. This makes it possible to go 100% paperless, streamline the flow of goods and documents, while saving time and protecting the environment. Document printing costs also disappear, which results in cost savings and protecting the environment.

In mid-2022,  Fresh Logistics Polska, Lactalis Polska and Jeronimo Martins implemented the first phase of the Paperless Model. They focused on simplifying the process of supplying goods from the producer to the consignee carried out by the logistics operator using GS1 standards, the DESADV and RECADV messages.

The pilot implementation of the Paperless Model has improved delivery acceptance efficiency at the end user by 44% per supplier. The main benefit here is the reduction in times for accepting deliveries. The rate of incorrect deliveries improved by around 5%, mainly due to a decrease in missed deliveries from around 8% to around 3%. In turn, thanks to the automation of acceptances, the cost of handling deliveries on the consignee side fell by 38%. Savings of paper from the paperless CMR alone saves 900,000 trees annually.

We are only at the beginning of the process of completely eliminating paper documents used in the supply chain but any solution that introduces the digitisation of one of the stages in a standardised (repeatable) manner brings us closer to this goal. The biggest challenge will be to ensure the appropriate rate of conversion of paper-based solutions to digital ones with the widest possible use of a single standard, which may be particularly difficult if the currently varying expectations of end users, such as retail chains, are taken into account. We are counting on cooperation in this area and a willingness to adapt to a single standard that would be widely available and applicable to everyone. The award we have received is undoubtedly a driving force for further work on the digitisation of the supply chain - comments Jarosław Gulowaty, Contract Logistics Director, Fresh Logistics Polska and Chairman of the GS1 Polska Council.