Evaluation of Autonomous Logistic Processes — Analysis of the Influence of Structural Complexity

Abstract

The concept of autonomous control requires on one hand logistic objects that are able to receive local information, process these information, and make a decision about their next action. On the other hand, the logistic structure has to provide distributed information about local states and different alternatives to enable decisions generally. These features will be made possible through the development of Ubiquitous Computing technologies (Fleisch et al. 2003).The application of autonomous control in production logistics can be realized by recent information and communication technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID), wireless communication networks etc. These technologies enable intelligent and autonomous parts and products to communicate with each other and with their resources such as machines and transportation systems and to process the acquired information. This leads to a coalescence of material flow and information flow and allows every item or product to manage and control its manufacturing process autonomously . The coordination of these intelligent objects requires advanced planning and control concepts and strategies to realize autonomous control of logistic processes. To develop and analyze such autonomous control strategies dynamic models are required.In order to prove that the implementation of autonomous control in production systems is more advantageous than conventionally managed systems, it is essential to develop an adequate evaluation system. This system reflects the degree of achievement of logistic objectives related to the level of autonomous control and the level of complexity. Within the Collaborative Research Centre 637 "Autonomous Cooperating Logistic Processes: A

Application of a three-component evaluation system for autonomous control in logistics

“…This includes the necessity to assess the complexity of logistics systems. Despite the several approaches to quantify complexity listed in [14] it is obvious that complexity cannot be assessed by a single variable. The correct approach is to describe complexity by multiple factors.…”

Autonomous Control of Logistic Processes: A Retrospective

“…The profound evaluation of the performance of autonomous control methods requires a target system that contains performance measurements for the basic categories of logistic objectives: due date adherence, throughput time, work in process, and utilization (Nyhuis and Wiendahl 2009). Therefore, Philipp et al (2007) introduced a vectorial approach that considers these basic objectives with weighting factors to adjust the influence of each objective onto the total logistics target achievement. Grundstein et al (2015b) enhanced the vectorial approach to additionally consider measurements of planning adherence.…”

Saving Human Lives: What Complexity Science and Information Systems can Contribute

“…Planning and control approaches mostly work well for stationary systems, while complex systems with extremely variable and hardly predictable dynamics call for enough autonomy to flexibly adapt to the respective local requirements [156]. In other words: managing complexity requires decentralized adaptation rather than centralized control.…”

“…In this context, it is worth reminding the reader of the "minimally invasive" principle of "chaos control", which just pushes the system slightly, at the right moment, to let it take a particular path [155]. Planning and control approaches mostly work well for stationary systems, while complex systems with extremely variable and hardly predictable dynamics call for enough autonomy to flexibly adapt to the respective local requirements [156]. In other words: managing complexity requires decentralized adaptation rather than centralized control.…”