FENIX consortium partners gathered at ERTICO’s office in Brussels for their last General Assembly before the project ends officially on 31 March. The General Assembly was combined with a Technical Workshop as partners set some important milestones on the path towards the implementation of a federated architecture for data sharing.
During the Technical Workshop on Thursday 3 November representatives from the entire consortium engaged in fruitful discussions that led to sharing recommendations and lessons learned. FENIX Project Coordinator, ERTICO’s Dr Eusebiu Catana, invited partners to provide updates on the latest developments of each of the project’s tasks and activities, in order to establish the last steps before the conclusion of the project.
On the second day, Friday 4 November, the discussion focused on the best practices to achieve a multidisciplinary approach within each activity and on how to enhance cross-corridor collaboration. Dr Catana closed the session by giving some information about the project’s final event, to be held on 08th February at P&G’s Campus near Brussels.
The two-day meeting reaffirmed the understanding that interoperability and standardisation of data sharing tools are two fundamental factors for the concretisation of EU’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) goals, especially when structuring an integrated logistics network. This will allow logistics actors and stakeholders around the world to benefit from enhanced and standardised data sharing instruments, which are to have a valuable effect in overcoming the current global supply chains’ constraints. Creating a link between individual cases and developing a standardised system for the evaluation of logistics operations is the foundation upon which the FENIX project has delivered and has reached the main results.
The first part of the Technical Workshop also focused on FENIX 2.0 and offered a showcase of the future of logistics in the EU and beyond. FENIX 2.0 will be a joint initiative to set and maintain FENIX specifications in order to allow platforms to share data, including cross-border harmonisation and interoperability. The use cases and standards offered by FENIX will be useful to expand the outreach of FENIX 2.0 to international partners. By presenting the main characteristics and features of each pilot site during the General Assembly, consortium partners also gave a detailed overview about which goals FENIX 2.0 should envisage. FENIX 2.0 will have the opportunity – and the duty – to connect the dots created by FENIX pilot sites’ use cases so far and expand the scope of the project’s activities.
Since one of the principal goals of the projects (co-)funded by the European-Commission is to open and benefit from new market opportunities within the EU and beyond, FENIX 2.0 should identify the targets and the right partners to enhance the achievements obtained so far. This will be one of the major discussion topics during FENIX final event and the last General Assembly on 9 February.
