Technology Assessment for Designing Smart Logistics Zones

This paper describes an approach how production and logistics can meet the challenge of a new industrial ecosystem through the intelligent networking and digitisation of participating resources of the value creation process. Intelligent networking in the sense of Industrie 4.0 and thus the abolition of rigid and physical system boundaries is postulated by the research approach of the “Smart Logistics Zone”. This is defined as a scalable area of investigation and action for analysis, evaluation, planning, control, regulation and (re-) configuration of logistics solutions [1]. It encompasses the interaction of logistical objects, processes, systems and the infrastructure involved in regard to demand and situation. This approach implies an interactive design of the future of human-technology organisation. The procedure of the Smart Logistics Zone should support entrepreneurial decision processes purposefully and on the core idea of Industrie 4.0 and/or Logistics 4.0 in a preliminary way. In addition to the general research concept, this paper focuses on the application of the methodological approach to a reference scenario for a Smart Logistics Zone.