Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics is the biggest European research and development facility for logistics subjects. Since 1981, new methods and instruments to optimize supply chains have been constantly developed at Fraunhofer IML and put into operational use. The following overview outlines the current research projects and subjects of the Supply Chain Engineering department.
The pandemic had a huge impact on the German export-oriented economy with its complex supply chains existing in the manufacturing industry such as the automotive industry. It is of great interest for the entire economy and for the survival of small and medium sized business, to perform the Ramp-Up, or in other words the economic recovery, with its complex supply chains in a fast way but also with forecast and foresight.
The project "E²-Design" focuses on the integration of energy efficiency as a planning target in the design of production and logistics networks. This is the first time that energy efficiency has been consistently taken into account within the framework of supply chain design.
Next-Net project creates a cross-sectoral and cross-technology initiative at European level. The aim is to coordinate future research in production and logistic to propose research and innovation priorities for the future of supply chains.
Local intelligence and networked planning to increase the efficiency of technical production machines in collaborative production networks of SMEs.
The goal of this project is the improvement of process handling in complex production and logsitics networks with the integration of Smart Objects and digital B2B Smart Finance Approaches.
Collaboration as a key to the successful transfer of innovation using automotive logistics 4.0 as an example.
The challenge of the Smart Face project is to link approaches of CPS with existing technologies and production structures in order to create new and innovative solutions for lean production in small batch productions.
The VILOMA project investigated target group-specific and intuitive visualizations for better control of logistics networks.
This project pursues the approach to add an overlapping risk management to the order scheduling and transport planning in automotive logistics networks in order to enable a logistic-oriented risk assessment.
Within the framework of the EffizienzCluster LogistikRuhr, in this project selected default elements for logistics assistance systems for design tasks in value adding networks are developed.
Within the framework of the EffizienzCluster LogistikRuhr, in this project new methods and tools in the form of solution modules ("Plug & Plan-Suite") are developed, which can be customized to the logistical assistance systems for supply chain planning.
Within the framework of the EffizienzCluster LogistikRuhr, in this project an overlapping business logistic solution for the regulation of order processing and material flow with the support of mobile devices is developed.
This project addresses how the logistic network and production environment can be synchronized in a better way to reach a holistic improvement of the energy efficiency.
An efficient production and a low-cost and inventory-optimized logistics should be realized through an intelligent overlapping business material flow control. The goal of the project is to control processes of the automobile industry in a transparent and optimized way.
Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics