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Knowledge-enabled Access of Central Europe SMEs to Efficient Transnational Transport Solutions (KASSETTS)
Start date: Sep 30, 2008, End date: Sep 29, 2011 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The KASSETTS regions strongly base their future development on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) systems and on their transnational trade relations. Transport, logistics and related ICT services play a fundamental role for SMEs as they represent the strategic leverages to be on the Central Europe markets and to be integrated in procurement and distribution chains. Nevertheless, SMEs EU logistics management is far from being optimal and SMEs can hardly access optimised transnational transport solutions because of small shipping and low frequency of their transports and their low level of ICT endowment limiting their accessibility to the logistic supply. These obstacles finally result in a scattered transport demand and a large number of non-saturated running vehicles together with a low use of intermodal transport, producing increasing transport emissions at the same time.The project was developed to overcome these problems and to answer the need of ICT tools to help manufacturing companies, in particular SMEs, optimising their transnational logistic traffics. Recent results of broker demonstrations which were done on regional level showed that cost savings of more than 20 percent for involved SMEs, a decrease of 30 percent of kilometers per vehicle and a reduction in the number of transport routes by 37 percent are possible. In order to even improve these numbers and to transmit the idea on a transnational level, the project aims to create a stable EU operative ICT network of logistics brokers, based on open source policy, in which every broker is a joint logistic office among SMEs. Achievements: The CENTRAL EUROPE (CEU) project KASSETTS developed fully operational, functioning informatics tools, with tuned services to monitor the performances of the logistics broker network activities, available since March 2012 for testing also on the KASSETTS web site. The whole CEU community of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Logistic Operators can so benefit of these free of charge tools supplied with multilanguage training materials. Since April 2011, the open brokers network lives, based on an organisational and business model (to support the set up of the pilot activities in all the 7 partners regions). In particular, in the period April-November 2011, the partners made big efforts to operate the 7 brokering offices in a pilot phase test with the support of the companies previously involved. The major activities in the 4 pilots (each involving 3 partners) mainly consisted in making the brokers operational by planning orders and calculate efficient transport missions solutions. Partners have produced key performance indicators (KPI) reports to assess the planned missions. Based on the KPI reports, the best week of the entire planning period was chosen and a report was made by each partner. The reports were merged into a cumulative report for each pilot. Morever, by March 2012 the partners assessed the results achieved in a cumulative framework. Based on the quantitative and qualitative findings, final recommendations were issued to feed and tune the Raod Map for brokers network sustainability also after the project end. The Road Map for sustainability after the project end is avilable since March 2012, it promotes the following aspects: organisational model, requirements for functional development of the KASSETTS ICT software, financial and human resources to be engaged and finally the promotional plan that the project partners together with local stakeholders take care since the project end. Regarding the other achievement, the guidelines for logistic brokers to set up were updated according to the need to make them a valid supporting tool for the new Logistics Brokers to set up: they can be used by a new broker whenever it decides to activate its service for companies. The established open logistics broker network with 7 brokers counts 110 SMEs and 48 Logistics operators that tested the informatics tool. The KASSETTS partners finalised the governance and organisational model of the brokers network. Its mission is to grant sustainability also after the project end at technical/financial/legal and oganisational level: software maintenance, future bug fixing, customization, add-ons, roling the composition and activities of the committe of brokers, fixing network rules. On the web site you find for download the KASSETTS EU Video, the Final publication and instructions to test the ICT application developed by the partners.
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  • 80.4%   2 000 276,25
  • 2007 - 2013 Central Europe
  • Project on KEEP Platform
Project Website

7 Partners Participants