With more than 400,000 employees, Bavaria’s logistics sector has been thriving in this new era. The reasons why: the conditions of operation which the state has to offer. Start with its location: viewed geographically, Bavaria constitutes the heart of Europe. Right next door to it is CEE (central and eastern Europe). Easing and expediting the resulting heavy traffic and enabling the sector to meet the ever more complex demands of its customers are Bavaria’s high-capacity rail and road grids, its state-traversing waterways and their trimodal ports, and its international airports.

These operating assets constitute one key driver of the sustained, among-the-best-in-Germany and Europe growth registered by the state’s economy. This growth has been fueled by the number, breadth and depth of sunrise sectors comprising the economy. These assets also make Bavaria the base of preference for logistics operations:

• Bavaria’s perfectly-maintained, high-capacity, state-wide road grid forms part of the network of superhighways covering Germany and adjoining parts of Europe. Comprised of seven transnational (north-south and east-west) arteries, the grid provides logistics companies with the requisite speed and reliability of transport.
• Bavaria has been at the forefront of the utilization of rail freight as a high-capacity alternative to truck-borne transport. The implementation of this strategy avails itself of the state’s advanced and extensive rail grid and of its 19 rail/road transshipment centers. This network produces high-speed links to the rest of Germany and Europe, and quick intermodal transfers.
• Bavaria’s international airports - Munich and Nuremberg - offer links enabling airfreight to be transported to nearly all destinations within 24 hours. Repeatedly ranked the best in Europe, Munich has a flight plan with the greatest number of intra-European flights of any airport in Germany. Flying time between Munich and Europe’s other major centers of business: a maximum of four hours.
• Bavaria’s harbors are booming, and there are two reasons why. The harbors feature state-of-technology facilities enabling industry-best freight turnaround times. The harbors are located on the Rhine-Main-Danube waterways, whose nearly 3500 kilometers link Bavaria with the Rotterdam and other world-class ports on the North Sea and those on the Black Sea.
• The state-covering network of freight forwarding facilities in Nuremberg, Regensburg, Ingolstadt, Straubing and Augsburg provides the services enabling optimal intermodal transfers and links.

For logistics company, Bavaria constitutes a potent and promising market of a wide range of providers of innovative and specialized services. These, in turn, enable logistic companies to be incorporated into chains of trans-disciplinary technology development and operation.

These are also comprised of the automotive, IT, aerospace, life sciences, industrial engineering, and energy and environmental technologies sectors.

Bavaria’s logistics sector is comprised of nearly all major operators, including DHL, UPS, Schenker, Hellmann, Maersk, Hanjin Logistics, ProLogis and Goodman. Headquartered in Bavaria are such global players as Dachser and DPD. Like such major international wholesalers and retailers as Amazon, Ingram Micro, Office Depot, NYK Logistics and Rexel, these companies have made Bavaria the hub of their freight forwarding and distribution activities.

A large number of logistics companies capitalize upon Bavaria’s heart-of-Europe location and upon the intermodal and other links connecting the state with Italy and the Balkans by basing in the state operations serving eastern, southeastern and southern Europe. These links guarantee their users optimal times and efficiencies of transport to such major ports as Triest, Koper and Rijeka. These are also guaranteed by the Rhine-Main-Danube waterway, which links Bavaria with such countries as Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Moldava and the Ukraine.

Borne by these links are the goods representing the concrete expression of the close ties which have grown up over the last few decades between Bavaria and its eastern and southeastern neighbors. These ties constitute one important reason why more than 1,500 non-German high-techs have set up subsidiaries in Bavaria!

Research and Education is given the highest priority in Bavaria, in which more than 20 institutions of higher education offer logistics in all its aspects and specializations as a major or minor:

• chairs of and degree programs at and in the Universities of Augsburg, Bamberg, Bayreuth, Eichstätt, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Munich (Technical University and the University of the Federal Armed Forces), Regensburg and Würzburg; and the universities of applied sciences in Augsburg, Hof, Kempten and Neu-Ulm. The institutions’ research and degree programs cover a wide range of subjects, including international-level logistics, supply chain management and new technologies used in freight forwarding’s processing of commissions.
• Logistic issues are also addressed by the schools of technology and economic engineering at TUM (Technical University Munich) and at the universities of applied sciences at Neu-Ulm and Rosenheim.
• The institutions’ degree programs are multidisciplinary in focus and feature input from IT and other sectors. IT-based degree programs are offered by the institutions in Bamberg, Bayreuth und Erlangen-Nuremberg.

The successes achieved by a company are directly related to the level of qualifications held by its workforce. This especially holds true of logistics companies, whose operations show a high degree of complexity. This dictates the provision of high-quality vocational and ongoing occupational education to staff members.

This provision is accompanied by the vocational and occupational education programs offered by Bavaria’s dedicated schools, by the state’s chambers of commerce and industry, and by private sector operators.

Also staging such programs are Bavaria’s associations of the transport and of the freight forward sectors (LBS and LBT). These two associations also issue in-depth bulletins on issues associated with labor laws.

The state of Bavaria was at the forefront of the forging of networks comprising its academic and business communities (with the latter including both global players and SMEs). These policies of network-building led to the coalescence of the state’s logistics cluster. Forming part of Bavaria’s Alliance for Innovation, the cluster links Bavaria’s companies, research institutes and state institutions. The cluster’s brief is to initiate and facilitate consortiums undertaking programs and setting up forums and working circles devoting themselves to partnership-building and resolving key issues, and to the development of technologies encompassing a wide range of disciplines.

Bavaria’s logistics companies work closely with this state-encompassing cluster—and with regional-based, high-powered research institutes, logistic networks and other technology partners. No matter where they are or plan on being in Bavaria--from Aschaffenburg to Rosenheim, or from Bayreuth to Kempten—companies encounter platforms providing them with access to possible partners and sources of information and services. These platforms also serve as the base for the generation and development of joint projects.
The following networks provide Bavaria’s logistics sector with a wide range of services:

• Logistikagentur Oberfranken e.V., Hof (logistics agency)
• Center of Logistics Knowhow Prien
• Fraunhofer Ceter for Applied Research on Supply Chain Services (SCS), Nürnberg
• Bavaria’s Alliance for Innovation
• Center for Research into Knowledge-Based Systems (FORWISS)
• Bavarian Research Consortium for Supra-Adaptive Logistic Systems (FORLOG)
• CNA Center for Transportation and Logistics Neuer Adler e.V.
• Augsburg’s Center for Application of Production Technologies (handles issues arising in production-related logistics).

The authorities in Munich and Nuremberg stage international trade fairs constituting platforms highly conducive to the marketing of their services and the identification and securing of partners (both German and non-German) by Bavaria’s logistics companies. Attended by visitors from around the world, these events include Munich’s biennial ‘transport logistic’, the most important in Europe in these two fields; and Nuremberg’s ‘eProcure’. These trade fairs are complemented by the congresses staged by and for Bavaria’s five logistic clusters--including Logistics Innovative in Prien--and by other organizers.

Comprised of fully-developed industrial parks licensed for 24-hours-a-day operation and thus ideal bases for distribution facilities, logistics hubs are found all throughout Bavaria. More than 13,000 hectares of commercial property are currently available in Bavaria.

Especially favorable conditions of logistic operation are found in the following regions:
Lower Main, greater Nuremberg, Upper Franconia and its Uppermost Franconia section, Bamberg-Forchheim area, Ingolstadt, Straubing Sand, Regensburg, Main-Franconia.

...is available in „Key Technologies in Bavaria“. This databank contains entries on Bavaria’s logistics companies.