Logistics Hall of Fame recognises historic milestones

The founders of the postal system, the inventors of the barcode and the conveyor belt, and the pioneers of parcel and express logistics are among 13 logisticians inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame in 2016.

“The new members complete the timeline of milestone achievements in logistics and illustrate how logistics has made life better and safer over the course of time,” said Anita Würmser, executive jury chairperson of the Logistics Hall of Fame.

The earliest logistics milestone dates back to the year 1490, with the creation of the first cross-border communication system. The new inductees include creators Franz von Taxis (Tasso) (1459–1517) and his nephew Johann Baptista von Taxis (Tasso) (1470–1541).

Henry Ford (1863–1947), founder of the Ford Motor Company, and Ransom Eli Olds (1864–1950), founder of Oldsmobile, were recognised for the invention of conveyor belt production. In 1903, Olds developed a simple form of ‘flow production’, the so-called ‘progressive assembly line’ for the Oldsmobile. Ten years later, Henry Ford introduced a system of automated conveyor belt production known as the ‘moving assembly line’. It then took just 93 minutes to build a Model T, and the car suddenly became affordable.

US entrepreneur James E Casey (1888–1983) is recognised as the inventor of parcel services. He founded the American Messenger Company, later to become United Parcel Service — UPS for short — in Seattle in 1907.

Americans Norman Joseph Woodland (1921–2012), George Laurer (1925–) and Bernard Silver (1925–1963) are being honoured for the invention of the barcode. It was Woodland who originally had the idea for the striped marking to label products. Together with Silver he developed the predecessor technology of the barcode in 1949 — which became a success when retailers and manufacturers in the United States agreed on the Universal Product Code (UPC) designed by IBM engineer George Laurer. On 26 June 1974, a checkout assistant scanned the first product bearing this barcode at a supermarket checkout in Ohio — a 10-pack of chewing gum. The barcode has revolutionised logistics, and automatic shipment tracking, modern warehousing practices and many other logistics innovations would have been unthinkable without it.

Freight forwarder and IRU President Lothar Raucamp (1905–1985) is being honoured as one of the most important advocates of the cooperative idea in logistics. When he set up Kravag in 1950 as a mutual insurance association, he secured the future of thousands of transport companies.

Gerhard Schäfer (1924–2015) is the only intralogistics expert to join the ranks of the world’s most famous logisticians. The market launch and series production of the stackable ‘storage fix-box’ developed jointly by the Schäfer brothers under the lead management of Gerhard Schäfer in 1953 is considered a milestone of intralogistics. The stackable boxes with a viewing hole at the front marked the beginning of modern storage container logistics.

Entrepreneur Horst Mosolf (1928–2015) was a pioneer of vehicle logistics and inventor of specialised automotive transport. Among other things, he commissioned the construction of the first double-decker wagon in 1959.

Frederick W Smith (1944–), founder and CEO of Fedex, is considered the inventor of express services and of the goods hub in the field of air transport. According to an oft-repeated anecdote, he only founded the company in 1971 so that he could prove to his professors that it really was possible to reach any location in the world within the space of 24 hours.

Peer Witten (1945–) is a pioneer of internet trading and modern logistics. As logistics director at the Otto Group, he not only built Hermes into a successful parcel distribution organisation from the mid-80s onwards, but initiated a series of innovations that set the trend in the market and subsequently served as a benchmark for internet trading. Alongside the early introduction of virtual information and service platforms as well as environmental management systems in warehousing, these innovations above all included new delivery services, such as delivery on all workdays, 24-hour delivery service or freely selectable time windows.