Logistics Mall—A Cloud Platform for Logistics

Abstract

Increasingly, in logistics value chains a shift from core logistics tasks to higher-value logistics services can be observed. Competitive capability is characterized by a rapid design and implementation of these services. The technology of cloud computing enables the provisioning of various services over the internet. Particularly for logistics users a simple and rapid delivery of software components supporting the execution of individual business processes is of high interest. This allows the quick adaption of frequent business process changes along with an accounting on pay-per-use basis. After outlining the current situation of cloud computing in the field of logistics this paper presents the Logistics Mall, an approach for a domain specific cloud platform for the trading and usage of logistics IT services and logistics processes. Finally, results of a study about the acceptance of cloud computing solutions in the logistics domain like the Logistics Mall and an outlook are presented.