The Scope story: an idea takes flight
Explore the origins of Scope. Our multi-part blog series reveals the development of the digital Standard for logistics. All chapters at glance:
- The Dawn of a New Era
- An Idea Takes Flight
- Times Are Changing
- Everything Stays Different
- Not Yet Perfect, But Promising
- One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
- And Yet It Moves
an Idea Takes Flight
In the 1980s, ProCarS made such waves in the logistics industry that the big players of the freight forwarding world came knocking at JR’s door, eager to hop on this rising trend. It’s almost hard to believe, but one of these global giants, who came on board in the early 1990s, is still using ProCarS to this day – a system long since discontinued, but still supported. This allowed Riege Software to celebrate 45 years of ProCarS in 2023, even though its successor, Scope, had already been steadily establishing itself as the Digital Standard for logistics for the past 15 years. But the road to this point was long, filled with its share of twists and turns. The truth is, without ProCarS, there would be no Riege Software, without Riege Software, there would be no Scope. But let’s rewind to the beginning.
Buoyed by the success of ProCarS, JR began offering maintenance contracts starting in 1984. Without any formal sales process – it quickly became a self-sustaining endeavor. This laid the foundation for starting a company. In 1985, Gabriele and Johannes Riege decided to found their own firm – Riege Software International was born. And this name was no exaggeration, as the customers who used ProCarS spanned the globe. The groundbreaking air cargo software was taking flight on an international scale.
Over the years, the functionality of ProCarS expanded in response to customer needs. By the late 1980s, connections to customs systems in Germany (then still ALFA) and Switzerland (then still Zoll 90) were added. The collaboration with the previously mentioned global player required that ProCarS, starting in the 1990s, had to handle not only air freight but also sea freight. While Riege had already gained an understanding of how sea freight worked, it wasn’t as deep as their expertise in air freight. That, however, was about to change – and more.
The global presence of this client required the development of additional functionality to equip ProCarS for every relevant country. And another major shift occurred: ProCarS was gradually deployed on UNIX systems in a multi-user environment – moving away from networked PCs sharing a file system, to a setup that allowed for an unlimited number of users on a single server. This made ProCarS faster and more cost-effective. It became possible to equip hundreds, if not thousands, of users with relatively standard hardware at manageable costs. The path for global networking was now paved. ProCarS marked the beginning of a new era in the logistics world – and from the outset, it was always ahead of its time.