DB Cargo talks to Jan Weiser of Kombiverkehr

With its new meinKOMBIVERKEHR portal, the logistics company Kombiverkehr is taking the smarter path to digitalisation. Freight forwarders will benefit from greater efficiency, visibility and ease of use. A high degree of transparency for all transport orders is the platform's flagship feature. Jan Weiser, Head of Corporate Communications at Kombiverkehr, explains the benefits of the innovative tool in an interview with DB Cargo. 

Jan Weiser, Head of Corporate Communications at Kombiverkehr, was involved in the development of the new customer portal meinKOMBIVERKEHR from the beginning. He discussed the platform's highlights with DB Cargo.

Mr Weiser, you just launched your new meinKOMBIVERKEHR portal. What can your customers expect from it?
Our new meinKOMBIVERKEHR portal takes all of the functionality and information that's relevant for our customers and that used to be provided on our website and combines it on a digital platform. It's our new flagship, perfectly tailored to the needs of our customers, including timetable information, booking, individual transport orders, and tracking information. In addition, it provides our dispatcher teams with detailed general information on things like how to handle dangerous goods in intermodal transport. With our new portal, we've created a system that improves access to combined transport and makes everyday work easier.

What will change for Kombiverkehr's customers, and how will forwarders keep track of their deliveries?
meinKOMBIVERKEHR makes processes easier. It has different application levels for all of the tasks and interactions involved in transport processing. Many applications can be customised and have a user-friendly structure. High usability was very important to us from the beginning of the portal's development, and it will remain a priority in later improvements. 

A central order overview providing increased transparency for all transport orders is certainly the heart of the new portal. Direct displays are one of its most important innovations. Transport orders are clearly indicated to users in the event of irregularities, as are incomplete bookings. Tracking lets users see where their load units are at all times and when they are expected to be ready for pick-up at the destination terminal.

Insights into the meinKOMBIVERKEHR portal

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The estimated time of pick-up is one of the biggest value-adds. Train route data, for which DB Cargo is one of our sources, is provided in real time. Our experienced transport monitoring staff add to some of the data and run quality assurance as soon as detailed information on later train movement or slot allocation at the destination terminal is available. Information on rebooked consignments is also included. So our customers benefit from having the best possible data on the progress of their transports and are always kept up to date. 

Forwarders' transport data is a valuable asset. How do you ensure secure access?
That's what our supervisor process is for. Supervisors are employees from the freight forwarders; they manage the staff from their companies who use meinKOMBIVERKEHR. They can assign access rights for each online service to specific people in real time. It's super-easy and works without us at Kombiverkehr having to be involved in the process. That saves a lot of time and makes organisation even more effective. If a user's affiliation with the company isn't confirmed by the supervisor, that user can't view the portal's content.

The world of digital logistics isn't standing still; it's constantly changing. What are your plans for improving meinKOMBIVERKEHR in the future?
Since meinKOMBIVERKEHR is modular, we'll be upgrading it constantly. Our developers are working on solutions that will make the portal even easier to use in the future. Our aim is to maximise the efficiency of communication. In the future, users will be able to submit requests for information about their transports in the portal themselves. One of things we'll use this information for is to manage e-mail communication. In the long run, we want to increasingly integrate content that is currently in e-mails as personal messages in the portal.

But that's not all. Our Easy Booking project aims to simplify the entry of booking data, and we're also planning a kind of rapid booking in which the initial allocation of train capacity will be based on a particularly small amount of information. It will be a highly streamlined booking process and a further simplification for the dispatchers. We're also planning dashboard displays of traffic trends. Up-to-date information about building sites on the tracks is already coming in the next few weeks. Our philosophy is to make everything happen digitally.