Electronic data
exchange with Kuehne+Nagel

The anchor in the logo gives it away: in 1890, Kuehne + Nagel was founded in Bremen by the merchants August Kühne and Friedrich Nagel, initially as a maritime trading company. In the meantime, Kuehne + Nagel has moved its headquarters to Switzerland and expanded its activities to the entire logistics industry. With a turnover of around 25.3 billion Swiss francs, the globally operating Kuehne + Nagel International AG is one of the logistics companies with the highest turnover in Europe. The company’s original “home market” of Germany continues to be of particular importance in this respect.Despite the company’s broad focus, maritime trade remains the logistics provider’s most profitable segment.

Kuehne + Nagel Germany employs around 15,000 people at more than 130 locations and is headquartered in Bremen. Worldwide, the company has approximately 83,000 employees at more than 1,400 locations in over 100 countries. Many German suppliers use Kuehne + Nagel’s services to design cross-country replenishment processes in Europe.

Like all major freight forwarding service providers, Kuehne + Nagel has to face the challenges of ever closer integration within national and global supply chain architectures. In the recent past, in particular, logistics processes have increasingly become the focus of large companies, as there is great potential to improve both the effectiveness and the efficiency in this segment.

The use of EDI technologies is the only alternative here. Only if the data flow is completely digitized from the moment the transport goods are picked up to the moment they are delivered to the recipient can the requirements of all parties involved in terms of speed and transparency be met. What’s more, the means of transport can only be optimally utilized if all relevant process data between the parties involved is available in digital form for planning and controlling the transport capacities.

Kuehne + Nagel offers its suppliers registration options for electronic data exchange via the K+N EDI portal, along with other comprehensive online services and the option to book K+N services.

In addition to classic EDI processes such as the shipping order IFTMIN and dedicated EDI message types for managing and operating external customer warehouses, the flow of data between the individual company locations must also be ensured. Numerous companies benefit from the fact that Kuehne + Nagel has international subsidiaries and branches in many countries.

As part of its IT-supported integrated logistics portfolio, Kuehne + Nagel, like all major transport service providers, makes it possible to exchange digital documents via EDIFACT.Most customers use the following core processes in particular:

For electronic data exchange with its business partners, Kuehne + Nagel primarily uses the AS2 and FTP/SFTP protocols.

In order to be able to adequately serve the EDI data exchanges on the American market, Kuehne + Nagel also supports the corresponding ANSI X12 formats:

Softzoll offers fully integrated EDI services for the digital exchange of documents with Kuehne + Nagel and is able to easily connect all common ERP systems with the diverse special EDI processes of the logistics industry.