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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