Autor: Julia Bendul

Due to the economic boom the demand for transport and logistic services increases dramatically in China. Experts promise for the Chinese logistics market a more than three times faster growth than for the German market. China offers not only cheap work force. With the accession to the WTO in 2001 the Chinese government liberalizes the logistics market. After outsourcing abroad and the integration of Chinese suppliers into the worldwide supply networks thousands of companies follow to China to open up the huge interior market with products as well as transport and logistic services.

This paper focuses on the application of a bee-like autonomous control method to a matrix-like shop floor model with setup times.Apparently present planning and control systems are unable to cope with the new needs for flexiblity and process reliability resulting from dynamics and complexity in the environment. Autonomous control means de-centralized coordination of intelligent logistic objects in a dynamically changing environment. By the aid of a continuous flow simulation the system’s performance will be analyzed in regard to the application effect on throughput times and inventory levels.

In 2020 production and logistics are faced by a changed periphery of manufacturing. New manufacturing technologies, machine concepts and groundbreaking manufacturing control will be the main fields of innovation in the range of production and logistics. Starting from a scenario of production in 2020 the following concept identifies the drivers of innovation for industrial engineering and in particular for production logistics, that reflect the increasing dynamics and complexity of the changing environment, and points out the resulting fields of innovation.