Domain Logistics Position Paper

The logistics industry is undergoing a digital transformation, marked by advancements in robotics, autonomous systems, data-driven (smart) services, and the Internet of Things (IoT) that characterise Industry 4.0. Furthermore, supply chains are increasingly driven by data to achieve resilient logistics operations and efficient flow of materials and goods. Thus, data exchanges play a crucial role in the logistics domain enabling, for instance, enhanced end-to-end visibility, workflow optimization, automation, and new forms of collaborations across the entire logistics ecosystem.

While the exchange of data within the ecosystem in a sovereign and trusted manner is of increasing importance, data spaces emerge as an innovative technical framework to generate business value. These data spaces rely on decentralized infrastructures and federated software components through which data providers, data consumers, and service providers can interact in a co-created and self-determined manner.

We believe that the establishment of data spaces in the logistics domain has the potential to tackle the sectoral challenges, such as lack of visibility, last-mile delivery costs, balanced inventory management, or paper-based communication.

This paper contextualises the importance of data spaces for the logistics sector with a specific focus on the vision, the value propositions, and the technological deliverables of Gaia-X.