Yes, it looks like it. The self-thinking, self-acting factory, the self-controlling, human-free warehouse, end-to-end automation in all areas - not just industrial ones - are on everyone's lips and the focus of our reporting. Many companies and institutions are working intensively on autonomous robotics - this is important and right when it comes to flexibility, precision, quality improvement, relief and ergonomics. But I am against seeing humans as an obsolete model, whether in production, in the warehouse or elsewhere. We are still here (at least for now), and I am not in favor of handing over the reins to software and machines. Sure, it's appealing and exciting to drive forward automation and artificial systems. We humans have an inherent desire to explore boundaries and then push them forward, step by step. Especially for us engineers, it is virtually implanted in us to have to make the impossible feasible. Have you heard of Theodor Storm's "Little Haewelmann"? "More, more ...!" Of course, this is followed by falling into the deep end. W ith our daily messages of wanting and being able to do everything independently in all areas of life, we deprive many people of prospects: Not everyone wants to (or can) become a developer, strategist, theorist or project planner, but instead wants to derive fulfillment and a livelihood from good and meaningful work. In a camp, for example. Let's continue to give people their enormous potential to create value there too: with their sensitive and motor skills, their prudence, their experience, their intellect and their ability to improvise, they will continue to be needed. In the factory, in the warehouse, in the store, in the office, at the patient's bedside. I am in favor of using workers sensibly and in productive, efficient interaction with machines and systems and of upgrading them instead of devaluing them. People in the warehouse - an obsolete model? A clear no.
Petra Born, Editor-in-Chief handling

Let's be honest: would you like to work as an order picker? "Of course not, but ..." may be your answer now, and I'm not just advocating honesty here: it's never going to be a great job, no matter what physical or coordination support you have. Yes, a lot has happened since the ant-running-sheet-and-less days. But is the goal of a lifting aid or a foolproof pick-by-large-colorful-pictures-and-symbols-snick-knack system really the employee's well-being? Or is it not rather the transformation of humans into machine-controlled humanoids to optimize their limited abilities? Before we drift into philosophical questions here, let's stick to two aspects on which there is consensus. Firstly, demographic change will reduce the number of people able (not willing!) to work in a warehouse. Secondly, the greatest weakness of any semi-autonomous system is the human element. Planning for them and weighing up when the system decides and when the human decides is more time-consuming than a completely autonomous solution. Let's not misunderstand each other: I am not dreaming of an autonomous warehouse that plans and controls itself, but I am dreaming of a warehouse in which people only do what they do best: Thinking and spontaneously mastering newly arising situations - and not running through the warehouse mile after mile as a moderately paid Sisyphus or pressing colored heads and acknowledging quantities and objects as a Pavlovian human. There is still a long way to go (let's remember the famous "reach into the box"), but there is no alternative. And one thing is certain: German intralogistics companies will be at the forefront of technology.
Martin Schrüfer, Editor-in-Chief of materialfluss