---
type: Person
title: Petra Vogelsang
description: Head of IT at Blauwal Logistik GmbH and programme lead of Projekt LEUCHTFEUER.
tags:
- leuchtfeuer
- blauwal-logistik
- programme-management
- seagull
resource: raw/2024-03-05-minutes-kickoff.md
timestamp: '2026-07-16T17:06:43Z'
citadel_version: 0.3.0
---

Petra Vogelsang is Head of IT at [Blauwal Logistik GmbH](../organizations/blauwal-logistik-gmbh.md).[^s1] She chaired the kickoff meeting of [Projekt LEUCHTFEUER](../projects/projekt-leuchtfeuer.md) on 5 March 2024 and is the programme's lead (decision D-1).[^s2] She will circulate a written cutover-strategy proposal in early April 2024 for the steering committee to decide how the sites after the [SEAGULL](../projects/seagull-2024-25-quaystone-pilot.md) pilot are cut over (action AP-3).[^s3] She also chaired the steering committee meeting on 19 March 2024, opening the session and thanking attendees for the short-notice scheduling.[^s4] The cutover-strategy decision is now tasked to her for the committee's May meeting.[^s5]

On 2 April 2024, ahead of the steering committee's decision, Vogelsang set out her position in writing: a single, big-bang cutover of the whole warehouse estate would be reckless, since a warehouse that loses its system stops the physical movement of goods immediately.[^s6] She proposed instead that [SEAGULL](../projects/seagull-2024-25-quaystone-pilot.md) run first exactly as decided, followed by a hold point before any second site, then the remaining warehouses migrate in convoys of at most two with individual go/no-go gates on data readiness, trained crew, and interface tests, with the cutover date yielding to the readiness of the sequence rather than the reverse.[^s7] She illustrated the risk of an untested, all-at-once cutover with the story of the first Ariane 5 rocket, saying it tore itself apart forty seconds into its maiden flight in 1994 because a piece of leftover software crammed a 64-bit value into a 16-bit slot.[^s8] This conflicts with the historical record: Ariane 5's maiden-flight failure occurred on 4 June 1996, not 1994, though the 64-bit-into-16-bit software defect she describes matches the real incident.[^llm1] She was explicit that the position was her own, not a decision, and that she would execute whichever plan the steering committee chose.[^s9]

At its session of 7 May 2024, the Lenkungsausschuss adopted her cutover-strategy proposal: the rollout is phased warehouse by warehouse, [SEAGULL](../projects/seagull-2024-25-quaystone-pilot.md) first, then a hold point, then the remaining sites in small groups with individual go/no-go gates.[^s10] The [Projekt LEUCHTFEUER](../projects/projekt-leuchtfeuer.md) charter also formalizes that, as programme lead, she chairs the Lenkungsausschuss and reports to it.[^s11]

She chaired the Lenkungsausschuss's extraordinary session of 10 February 2025, conducted in English at guest [Tomás Iglesias](../persons/tomas-iglesias.md)'s request.[^s12] There she reminded the committee of the standing principle behind the cutover sequence: any site failing its go/no-go criteria waits for the next group, whatever that does to the chart.[^s13]

At the pilot-operation status handover meeting of 30 June 2025 she reported on the status of the remaining sites and put a resolution on the timeline to the meeting: customs-interface certification remained outstanding and was not expected before autumn, and delivery of the replacement MDE devices for three follow-up sites had slipped; holding the original go-live date would have meant abandoning the agreed go/no-go criteria, which the committee rejected unanimously.[^s14] The meeting adopted her resolution as decision LA-2025-07, postponing the rollout to the remaining sites to the first quarter of 2026 while leaving the per-site go/no-go criteria and staggered rollout unchanged; she owns the written notification to the Geschäftsführung and the site leads, due 4 July 2025.[^s15]

On 20 March 2026 she sent the programme's go-live announcement to all staff: the entire Blauwal warehouse estate had gone live on QUAYSTONE since Tuesday, 17 March 2026, with the last convoy of sites crossing over that morning and clearing its go/no-go gates without a waiver.[^s16] She was explicit that the programme arrived well over a year after the date the first charter had promised, naming the re-planned timeline, the database change, the pilot's hold point, and the quarter given to customs-interface certification as corrections she judged worth their cost — restating a trade-off position she said she had voiced back in the programme's first month: "I will take that trade every single time."[^s17]

On 8 April 2026 she attended the kickoff meeting of [SEAGULL](../projects/seagull.md), Blauwal's new customer self-service portal programme — a separate initiative that reuses the former pilot's released codename — as Head of IT.[^s18] For coordination with the portal's timeline, she reported that [KOMET](../systems/komet.md)'s decommissioning has been brought forward to 31 July 2026, since the archive extraction for customs and audit history finished earlier than planned.[^s19]

## See also
- [Projekt LEUCHTFEUER](../projects/projekt-leuchtfeuer.md)
- [Blauwal Logistik GmbH](../organizations/blauwal-logistik-gmbh.md)
- [SEAGULL (customer portal)](../projects/seagull.md)

## Sources
[^s1]: [raw/2024-03-05-minutes-kickoff.md](../../raw/2024-03-05-minutes-kickoff.md), § Projekt LEUCHTFEUER — kickoff meeting, minutes — role and chair (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s2]: [raw/2024-03-05-minutes-kickoff.md](../../raw/2024-03-05-minutes-kickoff.md), § Decisions — decision D-1 (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s3]: [raw/2024-03-05-minutes-kickoff.md](../../raw/2024-03-05-minutes-kickoff.md), § Action items — action AP-3 (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s4]: [raw/2024-03-19-protokoll-lenkungsausschuss.md](../../raw/2024-03-19-protokoll-lenkungsausschuss.md), § TOP 1 — Ausgangslage und Altsystem — opening remarks (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s5]: [raw/2024-03-19-protokoll-lenkungsausschuss.md](../../raw/2024-03-19-protokoll-lenkungsausschuss.md), § Aufgaben — cutover-strategy task for May meeting (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s6]: [raw/2024-04-02-email-vogelsang-cutover-strategy.md](../../raw/2024-04-02-email-vogelsang-cutover-strategy.md), lines 16-17 — her stance that a big-bang cutover would be reckless (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s7]: [raw/2024-04-02-email-vogelsang-cutover-strategy.md](../../raw/2024-04-02-email-vogelsang-cutover-strategy.md), lines 33-45 — her three-part cutover proposal (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s8]: [raw/2024-04-02-email-vogelsang-cutover-strategy.md](../../raw/2024-04-02-email-vogelsang-cutover-strategy.md), lines 24-29 — the Ariane 5 analogy (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^llm1]: LLM - model knowledge, not from a raw file: Ariane 5's maiden flight (Flight 501) broke apart on 4 June 1996, not 1994 as stated (added 2026-07-16)
[^s9]: [raw/2024-04-02-email-vogelsang-cutover-strategy.md](../../raw/2024-04-02-email-vogelsang-cutover-strategy.md), lines 47-50 — frames it as her own position, will execute the committee's decision (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s10]: [raw/2024-05-14-charter-leuchtfeuer.md](../../raw/2024-05-14-charter-leuchtfeuer.md), § 5. Approach — 7 May 2024 adoption of her proposal (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s11]: [raw/2024-05-14-charter-leuchtfeuer.md](../../raw/2024-05-14-charter-leuchtfeuer.md), § 9. Governance — programme lead chairs and reports (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s12]: [raw/2025-02-10-minutes-steering.md](../../raw/2025-02-10-minutes-steering.md), § Projekt LEUCHTFEUER — steering committee, minutes (extraordinary session in English) — chair, English-session note (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s13]: [raw/2025-02-10-minutes-steering.md](../../raw/2025-02-10-minutes-steering.md), § TOP 3 — Re-planned timeline — standing principle on go/no-go criteria (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s14]: [raw/2025-06-30-protokoll-uebergabe-walle.md](../../raw/2025-06-30-protokoll-uebergabe-walle.md), § TOP 5 — Gesamt-Rollout — status report, customs/MDE blockers, go/no-go rejection (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s15]: [raw/2025-06-30-protokoll-uebergabe-walle.md](../../raw/2025-06-30-protokoll-uebergabe-walle.md), § TOP 5 — Gesamt-Rollout — decision LA-2025-07, written-notification commitment (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s16]: [raw/2026-03-20-email-vogelsang-golive.md](../../raw/2026-03-20-email-vogelsang-golive.md), lines 9-11 — full estate go-live announcement (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s17]: [raw/2026-03-20-email-vogelsang-golive.md](../../raw/2026-03-20-email-vogelsang-golive.md), lines 15-21 — timeline honesty framing and "arrive late rather than wrong" trade (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s18]: [raw/2026-04-08-minutes-portal-kickoff.md](../../raw/2026-04-08-minutes-portal-kickoff.md), § SEAGULL programme — kickoff meeting, minutes (customer self-service portal) — attendee list, role (ingested 2026-07-16)
[^s19]: [raw/2026-04-08-minutes-portal-kickoff.md](../../raw/2026-04-08-minutes-portal-kickoff.md), § AOB — KOMET decommissioning brought forward (ingested 2026-07-16)
