catkin GmbH
catkin GmbH is a German software company providing cloud-based collaboration platforms for rail freight and intermodal logistics, based in Dortmund.
Founded in 2013, catkin is led by Christian Krüger, one of its managing directors. Its platforms connect customers, service providers and mobile staff around transport orders — digital freight management that works across company boundaries.
The company holds a patent on its communication platform and the generic application programming interface behind it. According to its LinkedIn profile, catkin has between 11 and 50 employees.
Product portfolio
cTRANS is a cloud-based freight forwarding system connecting dispatchers, drivers, customers and service providers around live order data. cOPERATOR is the company’s dedicated platform for combined transport, used to plan and manage a network of partners such as railways, trucking companies and terminals.
LocoPlan combines an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for railway undertakings with visual planning of locomotive availability and utilisation. cSTAFF handles time recording and task management for mobile employees.
The Bahn Baustellen Manager (BBM) centralises and prepares construction site notifications from the German rail network, giving railway undertakings a structured view for operational planning.
Research activity
catkin participates in national and international research projects, contributing platform and interface development. These include the publicly funded ProMI project on estimated time of arrival (ETA) management in intermodal transport and the OKTOPUS project on optimising logistics and scheduling processes in the maritime-based transport chain for steel logistics, using machine learning.
Market position
Customers include combined transport operators, terminal operators and logistics companies handling order flows across the fragmented actor landscape of European freight technology. The platforms are configurable and connect to existing corporate IT through standard interfaces.
