milo - Make goods traffic efficient
Lucia Hering (Communication Designer), Lennart Westendorf (Interaction Designer), Zezhong Wang (Product Designer)
Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd
2022 Summersemester - 1. Semester Master
Application Designer, Implementor, Strategic Thinking
There are currently 500,000 trailers are on the road in Germany every day,
a third of which are not loaded with freight.
There are almost no static storage locations along the entire transport route from the factory to the end customer! The HUBmobils are mobile, changing locations for loading and unloading as needed. In addition, the multipurpose boxes are constantly on the move. No Multi-Purpose Box stays in one place for more than 1 hour - on its way to the last mile. On the last mile, the packages are parked for no more than 15 minutes.
We have found that the last-mile delivery process is still very challenging. Traffic volumes can be high, increasing the risk of accidents. There is also an increasing shortage of parking space. Fuel consumption per unit of distance is also higher. Our market research shows that people are already looking for last-mile solutions. The idea is to combine public transport with freight transport.
The aim is to make delivery to retail outlets faster and more flexible. Goods are sorted at larger hubs, preferably near the train station, and then transported by public transport to the edge of the traffic-calmed city center. The end customers (small businesses such as hairdressers, boutiques, ice-cream parlors, etc.) are located in this downtown area. At the borders of this zone there are mobile microhubs that stop temporarily for a maximum of 20 minutes in painted parking lots. In these microhubs there are small autonomous mobile vehicles that always pick up a stack of reusable parcel boxes and then distribute them in a radius of max. 2 km around the city center. They drive right up to the doorstep of small businesses. Unlike other projects, in this concept the last mile delivery takes place in a period of max. 4 hours in the morning before stores open. The last mile delivery takes place during the night.
We want to use micro-hubs to deliver goods and merchandise to small and medium sized businesses in the inner city that do not have their own logistics, and to relieve congestion on roads and transit routes in metropolitan areas by making micro-hubs more efficient.
During the day, the HUBmobile renovates the HUB and loads the BOXes. At nightfall, the HUBmobil takes public transportation to the parking lot or bus station near the city center. When all the goods have been delivered and a certain number of empty BOXes have been collected, it returns to the HUB by public transport, usually 3-5 times per night.
BOX
Modular in design and available in multiple sizes. They can be combined with each other through a Lego-like plug-in structure and can be combined into clusters of up to one cubic meter. The BOXES are reusable and the high-strength housing is particularly durable: it can be used for 3-5 years.
BOXmobil
The BOXmobil usually travels with the HUBmobil every night in a group of two units from the HUB to the city center and stays there until the end of the day. We return to the HUB with the HUBmobil only at dawn.
HUBmobil
The task of the HUBmobile is to sort, store and collect empty BOXES and to transfer information. It carries a variety and wide range of constellation of boxes so that it can be ported all together to the logistic center to reduce cost and safe time. Also its a very eco-friendly way of transportation because these are electrically driven.
This means that in addition to parcel acceptance, the return route is also directly integrated into the delivery processes. This is another point why small business owners no longer need to provide storage space, as goods can be returned on a daily basis. A strong side effect is that by integrating the return, a minimum loading utilization of 70% can be ensured. In conventional supply chains, the load factor is significantly lower (30%, including non-delivered parcels).
Every parcel is delivered 100% - guaranteed by Milo. Due to the secure locking system right next to the store door, the delivery is independent of the store owner and their opening hours. This creates flexibility on the side of the deliverer and the company to be delivered.
The Milo service uses trains as well as buses to reach the inner-city area. For this purpose, the goods are already attached to public transport - if possible - ex works. For example, to passenger trains.
The hub-mobiles with the delivery boxes, as well as the box-mobiles are simply attached to a bus or similar. The processes run automatically, so there is no additional work for the bus driver. Passengers are also not affected by the concept.
The concept stipulates that measures be taken to ensure that the inner-city core is traffic-calmed. In this area, the use of electrically powered autonomous vehicles at night will significantly reduce particulate pollution in cities and urban areas and keep noise levels at the lowest possible level. In addition, the transport is inconspicuous, as it takes place in the dark and should not disturb the urban population as much as possible. The prescribed maximum speed of 10km/h contributes to the low noise level.
Networked vehicles always take the ideal route and higher vehicle utilization is guaranteed. Prescribed driving breaks or necessary inspections and repairs are a thing of the past. This means that the idle time of more than two-thirds of the life span of transport vehicles in the factory yard or rest areas is saved. Most obviously, autonomous driving eliminates the need for drivers and saves half of the operating costs! Overall, autonomous driving avoids supply chain disruptions. This is because trucks are more likely to arrive at the targeted time if they automatically avoid traffic jams and accidents. If the transporters cannot deliver their freight on time, they communicate a new, resilient arrival time. Production can adjust to the delay. So the more incidents that are bypassed on the incident- and delay-prone route between manufacturers' factories, train stations, hubs, mobile hubs and a shipment's destination, the more predictable and stable the supply chain becomes.
Dynamic scheduling of intermediate stops can be adjusted in real time. Machine learning can help predict and dynamically schedule exact parcel volumes per depot. The efficiency of this method is supported by calculations from DACH, which speak of up to 20 percent savings when more flexible depot and hub structures are in place for parcel service providers.
I love to design the layout and the components of Interfaces. As a highly accepted team member my colleagues leave the task of taking care of the application to me. Therefore I started wireframing my ideas of how a plattform could look like, if you take your first order as a customer for the milo shipping service.
I got to the point where it was helpful to draw a user journey map and note in all the little steps the customer experiences when getting attracted to our service. In first order I thought of something more physical, so customers find their way through a flyer, where they can get the link to the Check24 B2B website. In first place they see in the shipping panel a comparison and associated advantages of the delivery compared to the previous shipping behaviour. From there they can get linked to explore the official milo service website, where they are able to see all the features of the milo service.
Of course there is not only the view of the customer which should be considered in the process, but also the perspective of the logistics. In that case I made a research on how to design a dashboard and designed my first dashboard in the process. It should not confuse the logistics and give a wide spectrum on the current state of the parcels. In this process my favorite part was to design the icons and illustrations, that express on first sight the USP's of milo!
In first order I thought of something more physical, so store owners (users) find their way through a flyer, where they can get the link to the Check24 B2B website.
People that deliver parcels or people around with a sense for sustainability could draw attention to the milo service for store owners with the analogue marketing. There are important informations like USP's about what differs the milo service to the convenient delivery. Also which way the parcel will take in the process and the parts of the product. And last but not least the contact information and the business model and available subscriber options.
