Opinion
Acting in the crisis
Everything is in crisis in Germany this fall: the climate, the economy, politics and German soccer - male and female - to boot. In German, crisis usually has a decidedly negative connotation: the child has fallen into the well. But that is not the actual meaning of the word. Crisis actually means that the child is crawling on the edge of the well, to stay in the picture. Sure, it can fall into the well and drown, but it can also - having become wiser - climb back to the bottom and learn something about everyday dangers.
A rather remote example, but in soccer it becomes more concrete: Of course, the German national teams could fail in the qualifying phase of the next World Cup, but the national coaches have every chance of preventing this from happening: Team line-ups, match strategy, training sessions - all of these things can be rethought and improved. Germany's soccer has all the means to play at the top with both teams in the future and thus emerge stronger from the crisis.
What applies to children and soccer applies all the more to the German economy, which is currently suffering from recession, inflation and a decline in orders or, to put it simply, is in the middle of a crisis. Of course, this crisis can lead to the abyss, but if, like us editors, you follow the news from the industry and especially the logistics and intralogistics sector on a daily basis, then a different picture emerges: logistics service providers and machine builders, freight forwarders and software developers are acting and using the crisis as an opportunity in this sense. It is always impressive to see the wealth of ideas and commitment behind this.
In this issue, we focus specifically on conveyor technology and present selected innovations that make companies more crisis-proof and future-proof. Conveyor belts that have been integrated into an AGV, for example, or sorting technology for conveyor belts that saves a considerable amount of space.
But a lot is also happening in the logistics sector: in Bremen and Bremerhaven, for example, the ports are adapting to the new transport mode of electric vehicles. While a software company wants to standardize and speed up the handling of shipping documents.
Germany's economy will look very different in ten years' time, but there is a good chance that "different" will mean more environmentally friendly, more efficient and more humane.
This idea also accompanied the conception of this issue of materialfluss. I hope you will find interesting suggestions for your actions during the crisis.
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