guide on innovation

title of the case

country

Promote logistics research,
training and services in a regional Logistics Institute

Italy (Emilia-Romagna Region)

innovation type

job / function

Organisational innovation
Political innovation
Technical Innovation
Training content/pedagogy
Other : target group unemployed

Job 1 (logistics assistance function: logistics analyst, logistics operation planner, logistics controller)
Job 2 (forklift driver, warehouse operator, pickers & packers)

innovative elements

The Institute for Transport and Logistics (ITL) was recently created in Italy as a specialised institute in all matters related to transport and logistics. As the founding partners suggested, there is a specific need in Italy for a multi functional organisation dedicated to transport and logistics. The institute, originated by a group of administrative actors, consultants, companies and members of public and private organisations, was set up within the Emilia-Romagna Regional council, one of the most active regions for logistics development. As the Italian development of logistics follows a regional logic, this implantation in Emilia-Romagna and the creation of the Institute within the regional council shows a very interesting initiative. Built up by the region's actors and with the companies developed in the region, the Institute is much more reactive, as its contacts and resources are easily available.

The Institute of Transport and Logistics is strongly connected to the municipalities and to local authorities in the regional area, knowing that one of its objectives is to co-ordinate some heterogeneous activities and competences. The close relation to local territories is an opportunity to structure existing resources with new objectives.

ITL's mission is threefold, namely RESEARCH, TRAINING and PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. By performing these activities, it encourages the region in developing trainings, it orientates the actors in accordance with the logistics' needs expressed by companies and training organisations, and it has an assessment role while ensuring the follow up of all trainings related to logistics in Emilia-Romagna.

It plays a central role of co-ordination and it combines the resources already available in existing organisations in these three fields of activity. As such, the Institute does not only develop its own services in these activities, but it brings the professional frame for the competent actors to perform these tasks.

When initiating the ITL, the first group of partners wanted to cope with the non existing relations between the actors working in transport and logistics, such as private companies, private/public training organisations, consultants, public bodies, etc. Therefore, the joint presence of private and public bodies operating in the transport and logistics fields has been defined as a high priority in the new Institute. The various partners consider this idea with a great interest and play an active role in the emergence of the first common projects.

Another key element at the beginning of the ITL was the research of the highest level of quality of services in research and professional services performed: therefore, ITL based its activities on strong relations with companies and associations specialised in transport and logistics. The competences of the ITL will then be more adapted to the expressed needs of the companies and private organisations.

Background

Italian logistics has a strong position in the European context, but also a weak institutional existence, partly because of its geographical fragmentation. Some initiatives exist to promote logistics at a local level, but there are very few exchanges between private and public organisations and the company perspective is far from that of the public bodies in these initiatives.

Some individual actors and organisations have obtained a position in the European institutions in charge of transport and logistics. This starting point made them aware of the need for a stronger organisation in Italian logistics, knowing that this type of organisation could not emerge at a national level. The region of Emilia-Romagna was considered as an adapted laboratory for the promotion of logistics, the situation combining a political and institutional active pole and a pertinent location for the logistics sector, because of the concentration of companies there.

The creation of the ITL was realised by obtaining a foundation status and by mixing private and public fundings. ITL has different types of founders, such as original founding partners other founding partners who contribute to the basic financial endowment of the foundation, and supporting partners, who give financial or scientific support to the ITL goals. At present ITL partners are Emilia-Romagna Region (RER), Bologna, Piacenza and Ravenna Provinces, the University of Bologna and the Catholic University of Milano (Piacenza branch).

The mixed presence of founding persons of various organisations and representatives of private and public organisations, reflect the need for heterogeneous skills and competences to perform such heterogeneous tasks such as training, research, policy-making, and logistics management.

In terms of location, the choice of ITL reveals the strategy of being inserted in the determinant logistics territories. It was first set up in the areas of the main intermodal and logistics junctions (close to the Saint road, linking Padova to Trieste); and second, three strategic cities: Ravenna, Piacenza and Bologna, were chosen as the pertinent poles for the ITL activities.

In terms of institutional development, the ITL is broadening its partners' network and including the regional Union of Chambers of Commerce of Emilia-Romagna, the Regional Association of companies, Ravenna Port Authority, Bologna Freight Village, Bologna, Ravenna, Modena, Piacenza municipalities, the regional railway company (FER), Regional Hauliers associations and other public and private bodies. The Institute is also based on a wide international network for the promotion and the implementation of the EU projects in which ITL is involved.

Description

The ITL was set up on 17 December 2003 to contribute to the development and the promotion of the logistics and transport systems in Emilia-Romagna region by providing research, consulting and training activities.

The main mission of ITL is to trigger better networking among Public administrations (Regione Emilia-Romagna - RER, Provinces and Municipalities, the seaport and transport node authorities), private companies (Logistics providers, Hauliers, Manufacturing companies, etc.) and training institutes (universities, business schools, professional trainers, etc.).

ITL performs its institutional action in the field of research, training and professional services, focusing on strategic interventions on key issues:

Its fields of activities refer to innovation and scientific support, diffusion of a logistics culture, technical advice, information, communication, co-ordination and networking.
it makes use of internal resources and optimises and coordinates the competences and experiences of the founding members and of new partners.
Figure C6. ITL main areas of intervention
it relies on external co-operation with companies, training institutes, research institutions and consulting companies, and it links with institutions of excellence at national and international level. The organisation of ITL competences was adapted to the three centres that were created (figure C7).
Figure C7. ITL organisation and branches

New or key competencies

For each of the key competences that the Institute is developing, the following elements are promoted:

Regional & City logistics

Supporting the organisation of national and international initiatives on this subject.
Supporting the Region in co-ordinating and monitoring projects on urban freight sustainable mobility and co-operating with the region for the definition of laws on regional logistics.
The creation of an observatory at the regional/national level is one of the objectives on this matter.

Training new logistics professionals

Surveys on ongoing initiatives of the European Commission for the introduction of the European haulier's driving licence.
Identification of the regional short/medium range scenario on training and creation of the related educational standards.
R & D transfer to the logistics enterprises for their innovation.

For each field of activity, the Institute provides either its own internal services or the services provided by one of its partners: university, training organisation, company, public body, etc.

Intermodality & infrastructures for transport and logistics

Collaboration with the Region to start up and manage the regional observatory on logistics.
Collaboration with other institutions that have planned the creation of observatories dealing with transport and logistics to optimise their actions.
Collaboration with the region to coordinate and finalise European projects on logistics of the TransEuropean corridors.
Research and feasibility studies on innovative solutions for intermodality and regional logistics infrastructures.
Collection of national and international best practices on the life cycle (planning, realisation, and management) of logistics infrastructures for intermodality.

Technology and innovation

Management and co-ordination with the Region, of research projects and pilot projects on data interchange among the bodies involved in freight transport in order to integrate supply chain management.
Development of projects to apply telematics in order to create intelligent logistics nodes.
Safety and environment: organisation of technical and informative meetings and communication activities to develop road safety culture.

Territorial marketing

Communication activities to promote the use of logistics infrastructures in collaboration with the Region and the regional provinces.
Co-ordination and technical support for territorial marketing activities of the different active institutions at the regional level in order to maximise efforts and to avoid "cannibalism" inside the Emilia-Romagna region.
Management of a regional website finalised to promote several initiatives carried out in several areas of the Emilia Romagna region.
Promotion of co-ordinated actions of territorial marketing in order to increase productive centres of national and international operators.
The training activities are divided into several partnerships (table C3).

Table C3. Activities of ITL in the field of training
ITL objectives	Operational implementation	Final beneficiaries
1: A better fit of the regional funded courses with the labour market	Survey on qualifications and on training demand of the operators in order to define (new) curricula	Emilia-Romagna Region Dept. of training Association of companies Professional trainers
	Designing/ setting up a system to reduce financing training supply and increase financing training demand using the vouchers system	Students
	Internship organisation and contact between universities and companies (+ tutoring)	Universities: business/ engineering / economics students Companies
2: Funding new professional courses	Interprofessional funds for continuing training (funds paid by companies to Association of Enterprises for training - via national level) - co-ordination of the courses at regional level	Association of Enterprises Employees
	IFTS: high level technical training for people coming from high schools. They are provided in joint venture between high schools and universities. They are financed by public bodies (e.g. ER Region) and are totally free for students - possible new courses or improvement of existing ones	Students from high schools Enterprises
	Integrated training: runs of studies in which high schools cooperate with professional trainers - possible new courses or improvement of existing ones	High school students Enterprises
3: Coordinating training curricula in transport and logistics	Regional specialised school for transport and logistics (through a regional law) which coordinates existing courses and curricula	Training bodies
4: Definition of regional and European standards in training	European Driving licence	Logistics and transport operators
	"Consolidator" - new curricula definition	Logistics and transport operators
5: Training and dissemination to SMEs managers	Organisation of training sessions to disseminate best practises and innovations in logistics in SMEs (managers talk to managers)	SMEs

The logistics competencies are more efficient when related to specific local needs.

Implementation problems and solutions

The Institute activities have began recently and have not unveiled any major problems. Contacts have been made all over the region and the actors seem positive with the idea of promoting logistics in the country.

There can be several reasons for this, namely:

All types of partners support the programme, because there is a need for more research and training within the logistics area.
Many of the training elements have already been expressed at the European level.

Results

The result of the creation of ITL is the emergence of an infrastructure dedicated to logistics competences. Working on that area of competences means that ITL promotes the definition of competencies in logistics and related trainings contents. This initiative to work on training offer as well as on training needs, brings a new way of encouraging new trainings modules and innovative contents.

One of the main results (in progress) is the strong involvement of the institute to the Interreg programme ENLoCC (European network of Logistics competence centres), which concerns the set up and development of a Logistics Competence centres network in Europe. This project was developed by 5 partners in the following context: the participating regions suffer from congestion, environment problems, while having increasing needs for their economic growth (in terms of mobility). They all have recognised the importance of transport and logistics activities for economy and environment. They launched this project to bring a major impact and improve European co-operation for sustainable development in this key field of activities. Therefore, the project deals with existing and future potentials in transport and logistics of these German, Polish, and Italian regions.

Elements of good practice and transferability

This training programme has several elements of good practice which are interesting to transfer to other contexts:

Building within a region a logistics centre to promote transport and logistics.
Creating a dedicated infrastructure to co-ordinate existing research and services related to logistics.
Defining competences in logistics.
Promoting standards in logistics in accordance with the needs expressed.
Linking research, training and services to companies in the same logistics specialised institute.

The objectives of the Institute that are pertinent to be transferred:

A better fit of the regional funded courses with labour market.
Co-ordination of training curricula in transports and logistics.
Definition of regional and european standards in training.
Training and dissemination to SMEs managers.

new competencies and
innovations in logistics