Stefan Hohm, Head of Development at Dachser, was " Logistics Leader of the Year 2025 " politics, and academia . He was honored primarily for the @ILO project, a highly efficient digital twin for packages, assets, and processes in general cargo warehouses.

St. Hohm

There are managers who manage the status quo. And there are managers who shape the future. Stefan Hohm clearly belongs to the second category. "Innovation is not an end in itself " he says. " It is only valuable when it is scalable and can be replicated across a network. Only then can processes be designed better, faster, and more customer-focused." This sentence could serve as a guiding principle for the projects he and his team have implemented in recent years: "Innovation is never the work of one person . "

«Never the work of one person »

With CEO Burkhard Eling, Alexander Tonn, Tobias Burger, and Thomas Hiemer, he has board colleagues who have helped shape this path. The fact that innovation is firmly anchored as a guiding principle on the board has made his work possible in the first place. Hohm is a "Dachser product." He has been with the company for 33 years, starting as an assistant, managing branches, conducting software development, building research teams, and witnessing the company grow more than tenfold to almost 40,000 employees.

@ILO on site. Photo: klk

At all his stops, he has to count on the support of long-time company leaders Bernhard Simon and Michael Schilling. Through countless conversations and experiences with them, he has learned the value of what isn't contained in manuals, language rules, or press releases. He combines his down-to-earth approach with a view far beyond industry boundaries. "Travel is educational," he says – and is a prime example of this. Silicon Valley, China and India, Stanford University, and the Executive MBA program at the IMD business school in Lausanne have decisively shaped his perspective on digitalization and innovation.

General cargo warehouse under control. Photo: Dachser

In the mid-2010s, Hohm built the Research & Development team at Dachser. This marked the beginning of a new journey that transformed research into a successful model and a strategic pillar of corporate development. "Like many companies, we have values—but for us, they're not just enshrined in our bylaws. We often go the extra mile when it comes to doing the right thing in the long term. That's where we're truly different," explains Hohm.

Also an extra bow

After returning from Stanford University in 2015, which traditionally has close ties to business, he discussed intensively with Dachser partner Bernhard Simon whether this type of collaboration could be transferred between research and business. However, "simply throwing the problem over the fence" seemed just as unsuitable as hoping for quantum leaps through internally developed expertise alone. Hohm is convinced: Only when business and science collaborate in a human-centered and professional manner can practical solutions emerge.

Digital twin on the tablet

Internal expertise—how a process works, what's causing problems, where there's potential—combined with
technological understanding and the links that bring these worlds together. This served as the blueprint for what would later become the Dachser Enterprise Lab at the Fraunhofer IML in Dortmund, where new solutions are developed, tested, and brought to market.

Blueprint at the Enterprise Lab

" mindset " became particularly evident with the @ILO project, which enables the control, analysis, and optimization of material flows in real time – awarded the German Logistics Prize 2023. The time taken to receive pallets from the swap body to the rail in the transshipment warehouse alone has been reduced by 30 percent.

Camera view from above

Dachser's live tracking of swap bodies and trailers, implemented using IoT technology, is similarly groundbreaking. 5G/LPWAN now allows transports to be tracked in real time across Europe. But digitalization is only one side of the coin; sustainability is the other. Emission-Free Delivery was also launched under his leadership: battery-electric trucks, vans, and cargo bikes supply defined areas of inner cities with zero emissions. What began in Stuttgart has now been expanded to include major cities such as Munich, Paris, Copenhagen, and 17 other cities . Further cities, as well as the connection between these European metropolises via main route using e-trucks, are to follow.

XXL code for vehicle identification

At the same time, Hohm is not shy in his criticism of European sustainability regulations. He describes the administrative burden as insane. "Decarbonization will only succeed if we integrate it operationally into everyday life. It cannot be a project alongside business, but must become a stance and part of the business model," says Hohm. This also includes refraining from embellishing oneself with labels or committing to targets as long as one cannot influence framework conditions such as toll rates, diesel and energy prices, charging infrastructure, or technology availability.

Don't reveal everything

Hohm is thinking ahead. As co-founder of the Open Logistics Foundation, he is driving the digitalization of the industry with open standards. The goal: basic digital applications as open source that benefit everyone. "This allows us to create de facto standards and significantly reduce the burden on IT budgets. One thing is clear, however: This applies to commodities and does not mean that we will, for example, make the @ILO logic public. That is our unique selling point, and it will remain so," he says.

What isn't in manuals...

Not every freight forwarder needs to build its own navigation system . Common IT standards help with non-competitive-differentiating features. If the open source eCMR can be successfully disseminated as a useful beacon throughout the industry, perhaps even the skeptics will come up with ideas about what else could be done in the industry, for example, in the direction of a driver app . A journey that has only just begun. Hohm : "Anyone who wants to shape the future must be willing to leave their comfort zone."

The awards ceremony will take place on December 4th in Berlin.

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