Adaptability

For the implementation of autonomous control of transport processes it is tried to transfer well known and approved routing protocols from data communication to transport problems. Here structural differences between data and transportation networks prevent a direct transfer of the protocols, so that several different, particularly adapted protocols with different targets must cooperate in transportation networks. In the following a concept for autonomous controlled transport networks, called “Distributed Logistics Routing Protocol”, is introduced, developed at the CRC 637 “Autonomous Control of Logistic Processes” in Bremen.

This technical contribution presents a digital planning environment for an integrated facility layout and logistics planning. The aim is a noticeable reduction of time and effort for middle- and long-term facility planning and production planning. Therefore current data from the shop floor and order management are provided in an object-oriented consistent digital structure. This data is used to forecast the need for action and to deduct alternative solutions. Planning becomes more effective, long-term planning tasks become day-to-day activities so that the flexibility of the enterprise increases.

Mastering high product variance and life cycle dynamics of demand can be an important competitive advantage in assembly. The main lever to this is a smart structuring of capacities and their assignment to assembly resources, such as lines, stations etc. The true benefit of this lever is hardly exploited due to poor support by established design methodologies. The article presents possible approaches to structure capacities in assembly and shows their exemplary use in practice.

Incentives for self control in enterprises can only be successful when integrated by coordination. For this, harmonious concepts and “new” mechanisms of cooperation have to be developed. That topic is discussed in this article.

Complexity will be characteristic for future economic and technological development. Highly integrated and customer-specific products, that are manufactured in short times and call for life-long services, pose demanding challenges for companies of all sizes. Life cycle orientation and product variety thus mean a new dimension of complexity for production management, knowledge engineering and general management. Consequently, in future it will not necessarily be the fastest, cheapest or technologically most advanced company, that will be most successful, but possibly the one that is able to cope with this growing complexity in the best way.

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.

In current logistics systems, there is a trend towards more and more smaller and smaller transport positions (atomisation of load). This increases the complexity of planning and control. Therefore, there is a need for new concepts to be able to still have efficient logistics in the future. Such a new concept is the autonomous control where intelligence and decision autonomy are moved as far as possible from a central control instance towards the individual vehicles and goods. For this concept of autonomously controlled logistics components, a model is needed to represent the logistics processes and to enable the investigation and evaluation of solution approaches. Such a model has been developed in the CRC 637 “Autonomous Controlled Logistics Processes - A Paradigm Shift and its Limitations" [1] as a discrete-event simulation platform and is presented here with exemplary results of a control algorithm.

European companies which are producing on customers demand, have to face a highly turbulent competitive environment. The main challenges are short production cycles, high customer requirements, globalisation as well as competitors from developing countries. A solution to the resulting high dynamic and complexity are cooperative management approaches like supply chain management and the set up of specific flexibility potentials.

High dynamics and structural complexity in current and future logistic systems are complicating central planning and control. For enabling a more decentralised and autonomous control, communication between the elements of the logistical network are necessary for the provisioning of the information needed. This article details the modelling of the communication between the components. This modelling contains source and sink of the information as well as the amount of data, frequency of transmission, quality of service and the moment of transmission for a reasonable usage of the information. The technical feasibility with current and upcoming communication systems is evaluated under consideration of the model.

Production systems in multi-tier value networks are nowadays facing major challenges with regard to supply network operations planning. Many existing solutions neglect feedback mechanisms and operate under the assumption of isolated supply chains. However, even for intra-enterprise planning across production plants, hurdles hamper a successful business usage. As an innovative approach decentralized planning grounds on consensus-like agreements between equal partners - both intra- and inter-enterprise - through communicative, negotiation-like processes. Thus research activities aim at developing appropriate coordination mechanisms for decision making in tactical operations planning between independent supply chain partners for yielding consistent plans.