materialfluss: Mr. Karten, how do you define your area of responsibility at Arvato?
Marcus Karten: The focus for my team and me is to understand the logistics requirements of our customers in the market and competitive environment, and to help them stay ahead of their competition with appropriate solutions and services. To do this, we maintain a very close dialog with our customers, specify their requirements with them and coordinate the solution design in close cooperation with our logistics specialists.

mfl: You have your ear to the market, how do you keep up to date with logistics trends?
Karten: Via trade fairs such as LogiMAT, transport logistic or the BVL Congress and digital channels. Then via customers and suppliers. We stay in contact with the major manufacturers in intralogistics and they also proactively keep us informed, of course. We are very open to new companies and ideas and look at a lot of things. The number of suppliers is constantly growing.

mfl: What happens after the showcase at a trade fair? Do you then look at the reference installations?
Karten: We take two approaches. On the one hand, we look at what is on the market and what we can use for our purposes. However, it is much more important to find out what our customers want. This results in requirements for solutions from providers that we have already tested elsewhere in many cases, but often also completely new solutions. When using new technologies, we also specifically test different manufacturers and select the solution that best meets the customer's requirements. Reusability is particularly important here. What we use for customer A at location A should ideally also be a solution for other customers or other locations.

mfl: Reliability, third-party usability and performance - are these the three decisive factors?
Karten: Performance and the resulting increase in productivity is certainly one of the key criteria for the successful use of automation.
This has to be proven in a pilot project. With new technologies, this is rarely achieved right at the start, but the development must be visible in a defined start-up phase.

mfl: Do you accept the fact that the customer still has to help develop or refine the solution?
Karten: Yes, we accept that for pilot projects. But that's also okay, waiting for a fully developed project or warehouse system also takes time. Let's take a simple example with an AGV: we can test it in a warehouse at a point that doesn't immediately jeopardize the entire process. If it works, you can use it to transport not only waste containers, but also inbound pallets.

mfl: What role does exclusivity play? Do you want to keep your hand on what you are helping to develop?
Karten: Most systems are always highly customized, but the basic principle of the solution is usually the same and is therefore available to the market. We have exclusivity to some extent on partial developments that we contribute ourselves.

mfl: How big is your team?
Karten: Within the Logistics Engineering team, we have a mid double-digit number of employees who deal specifically with automation, some of whom work intensively with innovations and new technologies.

mfl: Arvato has different logistics systems in use at different locations. Wouldn't it be easier to standardize one system?
Karten: In principle, of course, we strive for the highest possible degree of standardization. However, it is not possible to implement one standard for everything. Different customer requirements as well as structural or legal framework conditions sometimes stand in the way of this and require correspondingly adapted or different solutions. In pilot projects, however, we sometimes specifically test different solutions in order to analyze the respective advantages and disadvantages.

mfl: Many system integrators dream of "plug & play" - can this ever become reality? Intralogistics from a modular system?
Karten: That depends on how you define the modular system. As always, the devil is in the detail, as we are talking about complex systems. That's why "plug & play" is very, very difficult indeed.

mfl: What major trends in automation are you currently noticing?
Karten: What is noticeable is the diversity of providers, increasingly from Asia too. Some of these providers have already gained a lot of experience in China, for example. This is putting pressure on traditional providers. We also see that a lot can still be done in the area of data analytics, for example when automation is connected to the warehouse software. Having full transparency of the processes at all times, but also the most comprehensive view of the data possible, enables me to design logistics with foresight and create more reliable forecasts, for example. Combining data intelligence with automation technology is a trend that we at Arvato Supply Chain Solutions are also following.

mfl: Where is the journey heading in terms of standardization?
Karten: There are more and more providers who offer hardware and software solutions, but they also have to work with the respective WMS. The question here is whether there will be standardization efforts in the future.

mfl: Has the e-commerce boom changed automation strategies?
Karten: Yes, because the rapidly increasing volumes of small orders typical of e-commerce, combined with the labor shortage, are increasingly making the use of automation necessary. Changes in customer expectations in e-commerce are also changing B2B order structures to some extent. B2B customers are used to short delivery times in the private sector and increasingly expect B2B deliveries to be just as fast, but at the same cost. Cash-oriented companies are reducing their stocks and reordering small quantities more frequently. In some areas, this is bringing the order structure in B2B closer to the order structure in B2C. Today's automation strategies must take these developments into account and offer enough flexibility for later adjustments.

mfl: Mr. Karten, thank you for the interview.

Martin Schrüfer, editor-in-chief of materialfluss, spoke to Marcus Karten.

Arvato Supply Chain Solutions:

Arvato Supply Chain Solutions is a service provider in the field of supply chain management and e-commerce. In the business units Telecommunications, Hightech, Entertainment, Corporate Information Management, Healthcare, Consumer Products and Publisher, around 15,000 employees at 85 locations in 20 countries support numerous customers worldwide. The strategic goal of Arvato Supply Chain Solutions is to be the "international supply chain management company with the highest customer centricity and the strongest focus on data and IT". The company is part of Arvato, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bertelsmann Group.