Automation in the logistics industry

Automation has been further developed in intralogistics. In the huge warehouses, robots automatically pick orders from the shelves, place them in boxes and prepare them for dispatch. This works quite well, but then comes the part that is not yet automated: parcels are delivered too late, are damaged or do not arrive at all. Such weak points in quality and reliability can often be improved through automation. This is one of the motivations behind this megatrend that is changing logistics.

A shortage of skilled labour also often forces companies to automate their processes and procedures. This can improve working conditions for employees . ‘Younger colleagues in particular find working in a remote control centre attractive,’ says iSAM CEO Bernd Mann in an interview. ‘They prefer to work in the air-conditioned office with the coffee kitchen next door rather than having to climb onto the device in all weathers and spend their shift there alone.’

HHLA subsidiary iSAM specialises in literally heavy-duty automation, and Hamburg's Hansaport terminal is considered a masterpiece. Just a few employees move enormous quantities of ore and coal, which account for more than ten percent of the Port of Hamburg's total throughput.

Automation has been restructuring work at the port for a long time. Right now, processes can increasingly be managed from home. This means the long and not environmentally-friendly trips to the port can be avoided. In the future, humans will probably act more as the creative solution finders to respond to the ever-increasing challenges within the logistics chain.

This process of change is not new. Massive container ships have replaced the many smaller cargo carriers that were unloaded over a long period of time using extremely strenuous and dangerous manual labour. What we call automation today was once called industrialisation.

The next step at the highly automated port terminal is to integrate self-driving trucks. They have already undergone successful testing and can be introduced in Hamburg as soon as the regulatory basis has been created. In the TruckPilot project, trucks found their way across the terminal, parked themselves, were loaded with a container and drove back to the exit all without a driver.