LOBRA
Logistics Laboratory
The Logistics Laboratory (LOBRA) Group Project serves the development of several different actors’ own learning, research and innovation as well as experimentation environments
Developing user-oriented logistics
This is what we do
The Logistics Laboratory (LOBRA) Group Project serves the development of several different actors’ own learning, research and innovation as well as experimentation environments more broadly than in just transport and warehousing, e.g. in trade, industrial sector, construction, circular economy and healthcare from the perspectives of users, service providers, technology suppliers, experts as well as other communities.
Logistics affects various sectors, and it is useful to look at it from a geographically broader perspective as well. The challenge is being solved during the project in partial implementations through enhanced industry-specific solutions based on the special needs and development opportunities in the involved provinces. Identified productivity, sustainability and responsibility challenges are responded to by the Logistics Laboratory (LOBRA) in cooperation between different parties.
Logistics affects various sectors.
In subprojects, there are separately described actor-specific solutions that are combined into one group project. Development needs-related challenges are multifaceted, and involve several different stakeholders, from shippers to recipients in different industries (in trade, industrial sector, construction, healthcare, etc.), logistics companies that serve them with warehouses and terminals, as well as material handling equipment manufacturers who supply, develop and implement technology, software and other technology providers, all the way to expert service companies, without forgetting, of course, the educational and research institutions connected to these, or entities promoting regional vitality.
The Group Project
The Group Project coordination leads to an implementation plan for a significant-scale logistics laboratory which can cooperate with other actors. In addition, subprojects involved in the project rely on both physical and virtual activity and are capable of producing benefits for several different industries and functions, as well as for the entire transportation system in the wider society, and enhancing workforce skills. The implementers of the various parts of the project have familiarized themselves partly on their own and partly under the leadership of LIMOWA with international examples. For example, in Belgium, France and Germany these include learning and innovation environments which are utilized by numerous operators. In this Group Project we examine the development need and possibility for similar concepts in Southern Finland. A large number of companies and other stakeholders have participated in the planning of the project during the last 1.5 years: this strengthens both our view of the need for the project and has brought actors closer together.
The group project objectives:
- To promote the involvement of LOBRA-related stakeholders in broader research, development, and innovation networks on an EU scale, especially within the key EU programs.
- To enhance RDI (Research, Development, and Innovation) capabilities.
- To create operational models that lower the threshold for adopting new technologies in the logistics sector.
- To investigate the development of logistics learning and innovation environments as well as laboratories, focusing primarily on their current state domestically and, where applicable, internationally.
- To develop specialized solutions or identify their needs regionally, based on specific themes and approaches in each sub-project.
- To integrate the results of the regional sub-projects into a comprehensive framework addressing the needs, opportunities, content, and/or operational models for large-scale logistics laboratories (LOBRA).
(Here, “large-scale” particularly refers to solutions and feasibility studies integrating the sub-projects within the group project, aiming for a logistics laboratory that considers the perspectives of various actors and serves as a significant and unique innovation and learning environment, even at the international level.)
More information
