Editorial materialfluss 7/2018
It's that simple
So many words have already been said on the subject of e-commerce, it feels like there must already be entire libraries somewhere (I'm guessing Bremen) with titles such as "Omnichannel, the unknown entity", "Internet: When digital meets real". It's all for nothing, it's much shorter! "Click, pick, pack and deliver": These four words, which I recently heard from Markus Schmermund, Vice President Intralogistics Solutions at Linde Material Handling, during a presentation, contain everything that e-commerce needs to be able to do. Intralogistics companies take care of the "pick" and "pack", and we are dedicating a special section to them in this year's issue of materialfluss SPEKTRUM. Let's assume that the "click" now works well and that logistics service providers have the "deliver" more or less, but mostly amazingly reliably, under control. This makes it clear that the "pick" and "pack" in the middle of the quatrain is of central importance.
The online retailer has to be efficient here, as it will not be possible to curb shoppers' propensity to return goods. These cornerstones have been set by a market player that has made crowding out its corporate credo and combined with the expectation of immediate "Prime" delivery. The genie is out of the bottle and will not return to it. But if intralogistics in e-commerce were easy, anyone could do it and so the well-positioned European intralogistics companies in particular are benefiting from the boom. The topics in this issue are impressive proof of this.
"The genie is out of the bottle and will not return to it."
"But if you want to hear a different four-part harmony, try the song "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" by Stevie Wonder. He already knew in 1995: "Oh, you've got the future in your hand". I wonder if he was thinking of intralogistics? Whatever the case, the soul hit is definitely fun. I wish you a wonderful summer, read materialfluss again on September 19 with issue 8-9/18.
Kind regards, Yours
Martin Schrüfer Managing Editor-in-Chief [email protected]
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