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f+h Intralogistics 3/2016

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f+h Intralogistics 3/2016

Trends ipact product

Trends ipact product developments During an interview with one of the editors of f+h Intralogistics, Jan van der Velden, Senior Manager Systems at Vanderlande, answers questions on current intralogistics trends and explains how the company is reacting to them. Mister van der Velden, the company Vanderlande focuses on the system business sector. What are the current sector trends in your area of responsibility? Basically, there are two subject areas that are currently generating a lot of activity in the sector. One of these is e-commerce, which is sustainably changing trade and thus the intralogistics sector. Not only are we witnessing considerable growth in this sector, but purchasing behavior and customer requirements are also continuously changing. When a customer orders something on the Internet, it is simply natural that the goods arrive the next day. Even if the customer does not need the product urgently, long delivery times are generally not accepted. The seller must be able to react to these requirements and be in a position to implement in practice fast reaction and delivery speeds. Intralogistics thus plays a corresponding key function within the supply chain. The interview with Jan van der Velden (right in the image) was conducted by f+h Intralogistics editor Holger Seybold Do you believe fast deliveries are an important distinguishing criterion within the e-commerce sector? I definitely do. We do not need to discuss the price when it comes to comparable products. The transparency of the Internet means that all prices can be compared directly with one another, just with a few mouse clicks. Therefore online retailers can really only differentiate themselves from other retailers by providing a better service. An important criterion is the delivery time. In some urban areas, retailers are already offering same day delivery services. Obviously this only works if the entire supply chain is designed for this purpose. At the start you talked about two subject areas. What other trend is influencing the sector? The Internet is also constantly influencing consumer behavior and thus all of the business processes. The variety of products is also increasing rapidly. New products are no longer just available in two or three but in ten or more colors. Due to the larger variety, products are becoming more customized. The next thing will be to personalize products. So if a product is processed in any kind of way for the customer, for example by being engraved, this is referred to as added value. We have therefore already reached batch size 1, which is a major challenge for intralogistics processes. The personalization and corresponding processes take time, which has a knock on effect on the delivery time. As a result of the described changes, retailers are faced with a greater number of smaller deliveries and must therefore keep a larger number of products in stock as well as including the personalization process in the supply chain. These factors mean that a corresponding amount of processing work is required, whereby companies quickly come to a point when existing systems reach their limits. INTRALOGISTICS I INTERVIEW f+h Intralogistics 3/2016

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