Networked distribution centers – intralogistics 4.0

Published on: September 29, 2020 / Update from: September 29, 2020 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

Over 5 years ago (March 23, 2015) we published this article about networked logistics centers and called it Intralogistics 4.0. What happened in the meantime? We have not changed this article, it is still current and we have supplemented it with new information that we highlighted in blue .

Technological progress does not stop at intralogistics. Due to the extremely rapid development in the IT sector, new concepts and solutions will be in demand there in the next few years that enable even more efficient handling of ever larger order quantities. But this is just the beginning of a development that will result in Intralogistics 4.0 , whereby we use Intralogistics 4.0 to describe the complete IT networking of storage systems.

Nowadays there are three main factors that significantly influence and accelerate developments in logistics:

1. The continuous increase in the international flow of information , favored by permanently closer networking due to the increasingly powerful Internet. The global search for the exact right product, ordering it and transporting it – all of this can already be done with a click of a mouse. In addition to the accelerated exchange of data, this development for warehouse logistics primarily impacts the question of how the increasing flow of goods can be accepted and processed even more effectively.

2. The increasing globalization of the world economy , which leads to further convergence of geographically distant market participants. The exchange of information and goods is increased, which for logisticians means handling larger volumes of various origins and types.

3. The increasing concentration of companies on their core processes , which increases the outsourcing of unrelated areas. For many companies, intralogistics is one of these areas (keyword 3PL), which means that completely new providers are emerging in the logistics sector who take this work off of companies.

These three influencing factors are closely linked to further developments in IT, which will lead to a change in logistics processes in the medium term. If today the objects involved in the logistics chain are only rudimentarily or not networked with one another at all, they will soon develop into fully automatically operating components of a comprehensive logistics system, the flow of goods in which is controlled by vast amounts of information: Big Data.

Make processes more effective with big data

With sales of 230 billion euros and almost 2.9 million employees, the logistics industry is already the third largest economic sector in Germany in 2013. The growth in this sector is around twice as strong as that of the economy as a whole. A serious obstacle to development is the partially outdated transport infrastructure, which cannot keep up with the rapid upswing and the resulting requirements. Examples of this are dilapidated motorway bridges or overloaded ports, where ships sometimes lie idle for days until they can finally be processed.

It can take years before such bottlenecks are eliminated. A quicker approach is to provide participants with better information and to regulate traffic flows more efficiently so that such traffic jams no longer occur. Intralogistics companies also benefit from this development; With the help of this information you can calculate the incoming and outgoing transports much more precisely.

The advance of the so-called Internet of Things (interlinking of electronic sensors with more and more everyday items) means that market participants can exchange data such as position coordinates, weather conditions or the condition of the goods with each other in order to optimize the flow of goods. The IT requirements required to handle these huge amounts of data are currently being created so that the reading of this rapidly increasing stream of big data can be made manageable.

A whole range of big data applications are already in use in logistics today, mainly in fleet management by transport companies. The main goal is to increase vehicle travel times while minimizing downtime. In the future, in addition to the possibilities already used, the efficient distribution of goods in the warehouse with the help of big data will be of particular importance.

This means that the software-controlled warehouse management is always informed exactly when a new delivery of goods will arrive in the warehouse. This knowledge is used to provide the resources required to handle the new items in the warehouse: at the same time, free storage areas that are optimally located for further processing of the different parts are identified, and people and machines are made available to transport the goods from the entrance to the dynamic storage systems . Still man and machine, one should say, because with increasing process automation it is to be expected that the proportion of human labor in warehouse activities will continue to decline.

The increase in performance in information technology is at least partly responsible for this: where ten years ago people mostly worked with conventional shelving, partially or even fully automatic warehouses and storage lifts have found their way into many areas. With the help of these devices, storage and retrieval, picking and order picking can usually be carried out faster, more precisely and, in the medium term, more cost-effectively than would be the case with human workers. This is made possible through the use of sophisticated software solutions that effectively control the flow of goods.

Amazon has long been committed to automation and is pushing forward its robotics. Combined with the autonomous power supply, Amazon is setting its priorities for the future with these measures. What wasn't on our radar 5 years ago: autonomous power supply. Topics such as green logistics or energy efficiency were topics for environmental protection and saving energy, but were not yet a focus for strategic economic advantages and brand protection and expansion. And that even before political issues such as the Green Deal and Friday for Future.

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• CO2 neutrality with photovoltaics – Learn from Amazon

Full automation has been an issue in Japan for a long time. This concerns issues such as urbanization and the fact that Japan's population is aging and shrinking. Expansion of RFID technology and other measures are examples of how Japan is already preparing for the future. And then there is Fast Retailing, which is working with intralogistics global market leader DAIFUKU to fully automate all 78 warehouses in Japan and overseas. Investments of 917 million US dollars are planned for this.

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• Japan is already working on the future of tomorrow

With the Autonomous Retail Systems (ARS), DAIFUKU another milestone in the area of ​​automation such as the autonomization of logistics for e-commerce and no-line commerce or unified commerce, the next logical step after multi-channel and omni-channel.

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• Well equipped for no-line commerce

• Autonomous Retail Systems (ARS) – Allowing the possible to do the impossible creates a new reality – expanding sales channels

Transport robots as accelerators of material flow

The next step is the intelligent automation of the material flow, with the help of which the items are moved more quickly from the warehouses to the work and production sites. The primary goal is to intelligently interlink the storage and provision of goods as well as assembly and production and thereby realize a consistently automated material flow between all storage, production and assembly areas. This is achieved with the introduction of “cellular transport systems” in the warehouse. These are swarms of autonomous vehicles that use laser scanners, infrared sensors and RFID chips to independently detect their surroundings and move autonomously to their respective destinations. Without central control, these devices negotiate incoming transport orders with each other, set right-of-way rules and exchange data about their respective positions in the warehouse. Since each shuttle processes its information decentrally, the entire control system is distributed across many virtual shoulders. If malfunctions occur, the swarm of vehicles reacts independently and resolves the problem.

Despite all automation, the concept of a buffer warehouse must always be kept in mind. The corona pandemic has shown that in times of crisis, the temporary slump in the supply chain must be absorbed by logistics and intralogistics.

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• Buffer storage: For e-commerce, retail and manufacturing industries

systems go one step further : intelligent transport vehicles and goods containers that communicate with each other and operate according to the principle of swarm intelligence. There is no need for central control of these systems because the devices operate autonomously, assign or accept orders and transport them to the required locations.

At the beginning of the development, which was largely supported by the Fraunhofer Institute , the aim was to design independently operating transport vehicles. These cellular transport systems are now combined with intelligent transport containers (so-called smart objects ) equipped with sensors and cameras. With the help of their built-in 3D sensors, the devices can record their environment and react to changes in real time, for example by avoiding other transport robots. In addition, the containers can always check their contents and, if necessary, trigger an ordering process independently. In the next step, the automated helpers will tell machines or people themselves what should happen to them or which process step is next.

In the future, entire swarms of these units will be able to navigate through the warehouse independently without people having to give them orders. One difficulty is – still – the handling of these many devices; They produce a data stream that is currently difficult to capture economically, even with modern computers. experts at the Fraunhofer Institute are certain that the required computing power will be available in a few years. By then nothing will stand in the way of the breakthrough of intralogistics 4.0.

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