After 40 months LOGISTAR project has come to an end. Last 22^nd September, backed by the Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Systems conference (HAIS 2021), partners came together on a hybrid session at the University of Deusto to disseminate the main outcomes of the project and testing results by project stakeholders.

The event was split into two sessions: a Technical session chaired by Enrique Onieva Caracuel from the University of Deusto, where the components and architecture of the LOGISTAR platform were presented, and an industrial session, chaired by Andrew Palmer from Preston Solutions, where partners discussed the potential business opportunities for the LOGISTAR platform.

Within the technical session, speakers from different work packages presented the approaches followed and the modules developed in the scope of the project. Jurgen Jakobitsch (Semantic-web) presented the architecture and implementation of the data gathering and harmonization layer. Federico Toffano and Diego Carraro (Insight-Centre) detailed the algorithms implemented to provide the system with predictions, regarding both times and preferences. Iñigo López (Universidad de Deusto) showed the algorithms used for the global optimization module of the solution. Dave de Jonge (CSIC) introduced the methods in automated negotiation for collaborative transportation. Finally, Christian Gengenbach (Software AG) and Reinhard Rust (DBH) presented the overall architecture, putting together all the modules and functionalities developed by the consortium.

In the industrial session, Andrew Palmer from Preston Solutions delivered a presentation explaining how the functional requirements for LOGISTAR had been produced from interviews with 22 companies across Europe. This was followed by a demonstration of the LOGISTAR system based on the testing that had taken place for each of the living labs given by the three companies involved in the integration of the system (Christian Gengenbach from Software AG, Reinhard Rust from DBH and Gaetano Formisano from Genegis). Each of the stakeholder partners involved in these living labs discussed their supply chain operations and the outcomes from the testing process. They were introduced by Miguel van Asch from Ahlers who coordinated all the testing activities and discussed the results of the virtual living lab. This was followed by Sally Wright of Nestle and Paul Stothard of pladis who discussed living lab 1, Guido Piccoli of Codognotto discussing living lab 2 and Michael Gierloff of CHEP on living lab 3. All stakeholder partners agreed that the development of the system and testing process had been a very rewarding experience with new knowledge gained by all parties.

After the dissemination event, the project partners hold the internal closure meeting to take stock of the advances in the project and to discuss the last steps for the conclusion of the project. This was also the opportunity to thank each other for the dedication and the efforts made over these years, with the compromise to look for cooperation opportunities to take the LOGISTAR platform to a higher TRL.

More information about the LOGISTAR project can be found here: https://deustotech.deusto.es/project/logistar/ and https://logistar-project.eu/