logistics networks

Design, planning and control of complex and integrated solutions are some of the most important keys to the competitiveness and innovativeness of enterprises. Unfortunately a lack of connectivity often hampers the way to efficient value added in production and logistics networks, since not all of the information you need is available on time. Especially in the automotive industry in which each process is timed closely and production has to stop when a part is not delivered just in time, the interfaces between the different departments of a company or even between whole logistics networks play an important role. For this reason, the FIR at the RWTH Aachen researches intensively to solve these issues with innovative concepts.

The ability of reacting to expected changes in markets in a robust manner and the design of flexible supply chains as reaction to ongoing changes and challenges helps gaining advantages for companies with these capabilities. To achieve this, the early involvement of internal and external expertise is as important as the principal underlying correct method. In this contribution the design of a robust distribution system and a flexible supply chain was as much crucial as the choice of the optimal locations in the USA and Europe.

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.