The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) today revealed that partners of the European Ecologistics project have developed a functional tool for monitoring and traceability in the supply chain.

The project, funded by the Interreg IVB programme, involved a three-year-long collaboration between over a dozen companies, research centres and partners active in the logistics of the supply chain sector in France and Benelux, who each contributed their skills and expertise to the promotion of effective and sustainable logistic for small-medium entreprises (SMEs).

The project has come to an end with the development of an ICT tool to synchronise the supply chain within the Electronic Product Code (EPC) network. The EPC is a European standard for tracking and tracing and allows products and other goods travelling through the supply chain to be electronically read, making it possible to monitor them in realy time and subsequently promote a more efficient and sustainable logistics system for SMEs.

Any company interested in the tool is able to download it for free and adapt it according to their specific needs, whilst taking care to respect the Berkeley Software Distribution License (BSD). Tool demonstrations have also been proposed by the partners for businesses in the region of North-West Europe. LIST, which was responsible for communication with the SMEs to ascertain their needs in the supply chain and genreate awareness among them of ICT logistic solutions, has reportedly acquired equipment for mobile demonstration of the tool which consists of RFID readers and bar codes as well as a set of identifiable objects. Companies within Luxembourg and its border regions are invited to contact LIST researchers should they wish to request a personalised demonstration.

In a broader sense, the tool will be used to train operators according to CPE standards in order to help companies maintain efficient and collaborative supply chains, improve product traceability and reduce congestion in freight, delivery times and unnecessary trips.

The tool can be freely downloaded at www.ecologistics-project.eu/downloads