The Weiden-based fashion provider Witt has developed an overarching material flow computer (MMFC) between 2020 and 2024. According to the company, this optimizes the flow of goods in the distribution center through a routing algorithm that determines the most efficient path for transporting items. According to Witt, factors such as route length, system status, and specific characteristics are considered.
“With our innovative
material flow computer, we can significantly optimize our logistics processes, which directly positively impacts the customer experience,” says Tobias Nieber, Managing Director of Finance & Operations. “Orders can be processed faster and more reliably, resulting in shorter delivery times and higher product availability.”
During development, special attention was paid to scalability:
“The material flow computer was developed with the perspective that it
can continue to grow over time,” says Daniel Vanella, Developer and part of the development team. “If our distribution center is expanded, our material flow computer can also be easily extended.”
The MMFC works predominantly autonomously and offers possibilities for human-machine interaction to react to unusual system conditions. This means the system meets the requirements of a digital twin. This is a
digital image of the facility that controls it on a higher level. In collaboration with a doctoral student from the Landshut University of Applied Sciences, bottlenecks in the system were identified and possible optimization approaches were developed. Furthermore, a data archive provides the basis for possible future AI systems. These could be used, for example, to predict system defects that occur in
