Annual Reports

 “Everything in motion” – this guiding theme applies to the logistics sector today more than ever before: digitalisation and especially artificial intelligence everywhere will change everything for everyone!

“Just do it!” – that was the motto in 2017, and not just for the “Future Logistics Congress”. It is also the spirit that motivates us in our daily work at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML – and that helped the logistics sector to be perceived as a pioneer for industry 4.0 and the digital transformation of the industry today.

 Around the world today, we are sharing the knowledge that the introduction of autonomous machines or cyberphysical systems will allow us to control the world more efficiently and flexibly. Change will be fundamental and information technologies play a central role: software becomes the steel and iron of all business models. 

Everything is going digital! The year 2014 was all about the fourth industrial revolution for us. As one of the parents of the Internet of Things, we are delighted to see that our vision has arrived in industry. With a lot of impetus from the »EffizienzCluster« and the incentive to put the Internet of Things into reality, we took big steps towards the future in 2014 once again.

Everything is going digital! The year 2014 was all about the fourth industrial revolution for us. As one of the parents of the Internet of Things, we are delighted to see that our vision has arrived in industry. 

For the Fraunhofer IML, the year 2013 was characterized by strategic development and the foray into new fields.

»Lots of new things from Dortmund« – 2012 can be appropriately summarised with this slogan. It was clearly characterised by progress and was not only economically very successful for Fraunhofer IML, but we were also able to make a crucial further step in terms of logistics, even in the public and political perception! 

The year 2011 – as being right and proper for an anniversary – was an especially eventful and successful one for the Fraunhofer IML. With more than 700 realized projects our institute can feel happy about both a record result at its 30th birthday and again having been considerably grown. 

The year 2010 immediately started with a sensation: the win of the EffizienzCluster LogistikRuhr, the greatest research project in logistics of all time. After the official start on July, 1st 2010, already 26 joint projects could begin and take on their future work together with 11 partners in research and 120 in industry.

Despite the worldwide economic problems in 2009, we have continued the previous road to success at Fraunhofer IML. So, we could set the course in many respects to keep going the positive development of the institute and its environment.