Two software vendors have already built it. Now the Open Logistics Foundation wants carriers, forwarders and warehouse operators to stress-test it.

The Foundation has opened a pilot programme for its open, vendor-neutral API for time slot management, inviting companies across the logistics chain to trial the interface under real operating conditions. Transporeon and TradeLink have already implemented the open-source API, creating the groundwork for the first test scenarios.

The problem the API targets is stubbornly ordinary. Time slot management still lacks genuine interoperability between providers. Waiting times at loading bays, manual coordination and proprietary interfaces remain part of daily operations at docks across Europe.

Why the interface exists

Warehouse operators need predictability at their loading bays. Freight forwarders need flexibility when plans shift. Today those competing requirements get reconciled through separate systems, closed interfaces and phone-and-email coordination. The result is unnecessary waiting time and operational bottlenecks — dead minutes that neither side can bill for.

The Foundation's answer is a common API that lets Transport Management Systems (TMS), Time Slot Management Systems (TSM) and Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) exchange information in real time. As with all of the Foundation's outputs, the API sits in the OLF Repository, freely available to the entire industry.

Nathalie Böhning, Innovation and Project Manager at the Open Logistics Foundation, frames the logic plainly.

"This is a prime example of a problem that can only be solved at industry level. For digital processes to work across company boundaries, a common foundation and open standards are essential," Böhning said.

Who is driving the work

The time slot management project runs inside the Foundation's Working Group Track & Trace. Gerry Daalhuisen, Senior Director Dock & Yard/Fleet Products at Transporeon, and David Bauske, Principal Software Architect at TradeLink, lead it.

Their implementations are not reference decks. They are live code paths, and that matters for anyone assessing how quickly this standard could reach production dock scheduling.

What does the pilot change for shippers and forwarders?

Practically: a chance to replace one-off integrations with a single standard. Participants can test standardised exchanges of transport and time slot information in configurations ranging from a direct pairing — say, a carrier and a time slot platform — to cross-company integration across a full transport chain.

Eligibility is broad:

• Shippers
• Freight forwarders
• Warehouse and yard operators
• TMS, TSM and WMS providers

The Foundation says participants gain early insight into how a standardised API can improve integration of existing systems and logistics partners while cutting the number of individual interfaces each party must build and maintain. For forwarders running dozens of customer-specific connections, that consolidation is the commercial argument.

There is a trade, of course. Piloting means contributing requirements and actively shaping further development, not just consuming a finished product. The Foundation is explicit that an open standard only delivers value if it works in practice and gets adopted — so it wants testers who will push the API, report friction and help steer what comes next.

Participants also get direct access to the Working Group, including Transporeon and TradeLink, to explore the API's fit with their own operational processes.

What comes next

The pilot call runs with no stated deadline or headcount cap in the announcement. What is clear is the sequencing: test, refine, adopt. If dock-scheduling interoperability follows the path of other Foundation standards — open, free, vendor-neutral — the pressure will fall on proprietary interface providers to justify their lock-in.

By Tom Whitfield