Even though online food sales in Germany are still at around one percent, retailers are investing a lot of time and money in omnichannel strategies. IT structures as well as warehouse processes and transport systems need to be rethought and modern technologies are also reaching their limits, as robots cannot yet fill paper bags more reliably than humans. "Hybrid logistics centers, from which both the store business and the online business are handled using the same technology, are the future of retail in our view," explains Helmut Prieschenk, Managing Director of Witron. The warehouse can be quickly adapted to new business models without any loss of performance. Witron relies on a compact design and short, transparent material flows. As a result, hardly any connecting conveyor technology is required in warehouse logistics.

Among others, a food retailer from Northern Europe relies on the concept. In future, more than 1,000 stores and all e-commerce customers will be supplied with over 22,000 different products from the dry, fresh and frozen ranges from its new distribution center.

The mechanized case picking systems OPM (Order Picking Machinery) and CPS (Car Picking System) as well as the piece picking systems All-in-One Order Fulfillment (AIO), Dynamic Picking System (DPS) and Order Picking System (OPS) are used. Dispatch is optimized by an automatic outgoing goods buffer.

It doesn't always make sense to replace humans with robots
The second challenge for the retail sector is the shortage of skilled workers - in warehousing and transportation. Associations and companies are advertising heavily for careers in logistics, but the campaigns are hardly catching on with the target group. "This makes automation even more important, but it makes little sense to just replace a human with a robot - you have to fundamentally question the process," emphasizes Prieschenk. At the same time, the demand for IT systems with good usability is increasing. "In the coming years, employees in logistics will need to be able to familiarize themselves with new processes and systems quickly. This requires good user interfaces to ensure process reliability," adds the Upper Palatinate native.

The third challenge is climate change and customer demand for more sustainability in processes. "Greta Thunberg and her comrades-in-arms are the consumers of the future," was the refrain from the audience at the 25th Retail Logistics Congress in Cologne. The answers from the industry are varied. They range from herb corners to electric trucks. "There are still too many trucks driving through the city. What's more, the loading space is still not being used optimally. The more data we get from the processes, the more sustainably we can operate logistics and organize transports better," demands Prieschenk. "That will be a competitive factor for us."

Sustainability in logistics requires data transparency and intelligence - the fourth challenge for the industry - because in retail logistics there are still many stand-alone software solutions for transportation, the warehouse or the store. The departments hardly work together and the data is analyzed separately. "We are developing Witron into a logistics platform in which we connect the systems via API interfaces and thus increase the efficiency of logistics," promises Prieschenk.

It's not about replicating human intelligence
The fifth challenge is artificial intelligence (AI). The term AI is not a good choice, it is a hype term. Witron is not interested in replicating human intelligence. "We want to develop warehouse intelligence from data," explains Prieschenk. Witron relies on machine and reinforcement learning to improve the technology used in the warehouses as a first step and then to offer customers new flows of goods and business models. This is the next step: supply chain intelligence. The basis for this is again data - from as many of the customer's logistics centers as possible, from as many transport service providers and branches as possible. Optimizing warehouse processes only makes sense if the entire supply chain is also integrated. Sounds logical, but has rarely been successful to date. What is the point if the goods are at the outgoing goods department 30 minutes earlier but the truck is not there? IT, physics and processes must therefore be considered together - because if the truck reports a traffic jam, the warehouse must also be able to react and bring forward other orders. Witron is working on this.

The sixth challenge is robotics. Collaborative systems work together with humans and promise more flexibility. "Our customers don't buy a robot, they order a promised delivery performance. How we achieve this is of secondary importance to them in most cases, as in many cases we also operate the warehouse. The overall system has to convince the customer," says Prieschenk, putting the robotics hype into perspective. "However, we currently see no need on the market to develop collaborative systems ourselves. Strictly speaking, our COM system is also a robotics solution."

Alternative delivery concepts - the seventh challenge - also rely on robotic solutions and autonomous agents. Kroger in the USA, for example, is testing the use of Nuro from the fall. "New delivery concepts are also changing our warehouse logistics. We are already integrating rail transport for customers, but communication and data exchange between Nuro, trucks or trains and the logistics center will be crucial."