VorLogistik Preliminary Study of Logistics in the Manufacturing Sector

In the design of their production and logistics networks, companies are confronted with a variety of challenges: the demand for individualized service bundles on the part of customers, increasing competitive pressure due to global competition, and rapid technological development in production processes and end products require strategic foresight, flexibility and responsiveness. While the technological competence of German companies is sustainably ensured by a wide range of research funding programs, and consequently many German companies can today be described as world leaders in the fields of product development and production or manufacturing technology, logistics research is not yet given the attention it deserves in some areas. Logistics in particular, the third-largest sector in Germany after retail and the automotive industry, has proved to be a growth driver in recent years. Due to the increasing tendency of industry to outsource value-added volumes to other countries, but also due to Germany's central location in Europe and the resulting opportunity to handle significant flows of goods from a logistics perspective, positive further development of the sector can also be expected in the future. In order to ensure this development in the long term, logistics research needs to be strengthened, taking up results developed in other research fields and identifying and working on fields of application of technological and process innovations in interdisciplinary, complementary interaction.

Against the background of the expected developments in the economic and social environment, the project aimed to identify the core areas of future production-related logistics research and to make concrete recommendations for sensible research funding measures. For this purpose, a consortium of the three most prominent logistics chairs and institutes in Germany was formed, which were already working on future logistics topics with different focuses. Under the leadership of Prof. Straube, current trends and strategies are regularly elaborated in a large-scale study, and roadmaps for logistics development in Europe, among other things, are developed in past and current research projects. In addition to his diverse research activities, Prof. Scholz-Reiter heads the Collaborative Research Center 637 "Self-Control of Logistics Processes". As one of the scientists who coined the term "Internet of Things", Prof. ten Hompel deals, among other things, with the use of intelligent objects in value creation networks and the resulting optimization potentials.

Project sponsor:

• Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

Project executing agency:

• Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH

Project partner:

• Universität Bremen, Bremer Institut für Betriebstechnik und angewandte Arbeitswissenschaft
• Universität Dortmund, Lehrstuhls für Förder- und Lagerwesen

Project duration:

01.05.2007 - 29.02.2008