INPRO Innovationsgesellschaft mbH Berlin

Logistics today has become a significant cost centre in global manufacturing networks and it needs to be optimized. At the beginning of the 1990s, the need for tools for the company-wide optimization of logistics chains became clear to INPRO's partners. Reducing logistic costs was therefore recognized as a central target. As a consequence, INPRO developed a new type of planning software called inProLog between 1993 and 1995.

This software enabled, for the first time, integral logistics optimization between suppliers and customers in vehicle production. Instead of shifting costs within the logistics chain, integrated cost reductions could now be targeted along the entire process chain. 

The partners in a supplier relationship were provided with a tool, which could model individual sections of logistic chains and possible alternatives and assess the outcomes. The key feature of inProLog was a logistics cost model, which constructed a thorough model of costs of material and information flowmaps of any cross-enterprise logistic chains.

This allowed for comparisons of structural changes to the logistics chain and different delivery frequency constellations for a given supplier part within a short period of time. It became possible, based on this, to very quickly generate alternatives and determine the optimal cost versions. By employing inProLog, cost savings in some cases of up to 20% in goods reception were realized.

InProLog was utilised by more than 100 users for planning supplier relationships and was an important predevelopment for integrated supply chain management systems. Today, INPRO's approach to process cost calculation is included in all elements of the supplier chain in all modern logistics planning and SCM tools.