Experience with teaching of commercial applications in logistics

Abstract

The syllabus of the Transport Engineering and Logistics Diploma Course at the University of Applied Sciences at Bremerhaven (Hochschule Bremerhaven), Germany, contains a subject called Data Processing Systems in the Transport Industry. The goal of this subject is to provide the students with the present state of the art of data processing in the transport industry and gain experience with software applications used currently in companies operating in this field. The students will be enabled to evaluate the possibilities of using available applications for every day tasks and special problems. We have explored two approaches to achieve these goals. The first one consists of a series of invited software presentations of the commercial applications for the transport industry done by its developers. The second approach demands the students to make use of the software and evaluate the applicability with respect to some operational procedures. While the first approach allows to present more applications and wider overview the second approach supplies deeper insight into the subject within the same time but of smaller amount of applications. Is there a perfect solution of this dilemma? The paper gives a detailed description of both approaches and tries to discuss this problem.