Pallets in, pallets out. This was the func-
tional extent of the warehouse manage-
ment system 25 years ago. As a software
engineer, and soon after he joined the
company, Jörg Fröhlich installed LFS
completely on his own at a pharmaceu-
tical company. Back then the company
consisted of ten employees with five be-
ing responsible for LFS implementations.
Today six teams work on the implemen-
tation of customer projects, each with ten
to 20 employees. This is a rapid company
development to which Jörg Fröhlich has
proactively contributed with his ideas and
feel for new trends. He has been a partner
at Ehrhardt + Partner Group since 1997.
Mr Fröhlich, you have first-hand expe-
rience of the company development over
the last quarter of a century. In your view
what is the reason behind the success of
Ehrhardt + Partner Group?
The warehouse management system is
undoubtedly the basis of our success and
from the very outset we laid the founda-
tions for the further company develop-
ment. 25 years ago the software was only
envisaged as a means of controlling intral-
ogistics. We set the direction of travel for
our software development correctly from
the very beginning; for example, the tech-
nical integration of automation solutions
has always been part of the LFS standard.
The functional scope of LFS grew quickly
enabling the system to meet the require-
ments of very diverse sectors. Today LFS
is a Supply Chain Execution System, in
other words, a comprehensive solution for
all the logistics in a company. And it is also
easy to take advantage of the technical in-
tegration of robotics and state-of-the-art
automation solutions such as drones. This
makes our solution totally future-proof.
What have been the highlights of your
25 years at E+P?
The dynamics of the logistics market
have noticeably accelerated over the last
25 years, with one thing leading to anoth-
er. The number of inquiries grew steadily
with the increasing functional scope of
LFS. More colleagues had to join us so we
could manage the workload. Of course
all this required an overhaul of our inter-
nal structures. When I started working
here every employee knew about every
project and could take care of any issues
if required. Today we have a separate de-
partment which is solely responsible for
project coordination and the six project
teams. One highlight was certainly the
first international steps of E+P, a project
in France in which LFS was used for the
first time in another language version.
LFS is now available in over 14 languages.
Our endeavors to enter the international
logistics market at an early stage have cer-
tainly given us a crucial competitive ad-
vantage. Furthermore, our product is so
flexible that it can meet the requirements
of different countries and different sec-
tors, which is why today we are a leading
international provider of a supply chain
execution system.
Looking to the future, what will the logis-
tics sector look like in 30 years?
The connectivity and digitization of pro-
cesses will continue to increase which will
pose ever greater challenges to IT. In fu-
ture, there will be a greater requirement
for systems to provide open, flexible in-
terfaces that enable easy and fast commu-
nications with a range of end-devices and
systems and for the software to organize
all logistics flows into one comprehensive
process. This is because customers, more
than ever, are requesting speed, flexibility
and transparency throughout the entire
value chain. Software applications that
want to keep pace with the dynamics of
the logistics market on an ongoing ba-
sis must be modular in their design and
standardized in their process handling.
Companies must prepare for these devel-
opments today and with our LFS we have
long been prepared for the connected fu-
ture.
25 years at E+P.
Visionary and pioneer Jörg Fröhlich.
“Today we are a
leading international
provider of a supply
chain execution system.”
6 7 LFS.vision