Standardised intralogistics must also remain flexible!

In just five years, it has VDA 5050 managed to go from a working group in Frankfurt to a firmly established interface of an increasingly globally networked automation industry. This is an incredible success story — and in view of the complex subject matter, the unsorted robotics market and the prevailing development dynamics, a truly exceptional phenomenon.

Orchestrating heterogeneous robot fleets intelligently and independently of manufacturer via a central control system — this is not only the concrete practical benefit behind the VDA 5050 project, but also the essence of SYNAOS.

Demonstrations of practical skills have contributed in particular to this: For example, the regular AGV mesh-ups or lighthouse projects such as the management of the world's largest mixed fleet integrated via VDA 5050 at the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles plant in Hanover-Stöcken.

As a result of numerous further developments that have already been initiated, the VDA 5050 will be even more broadly positioned in the future. This will make her the most promising candidate to establish herself beyond her home in the German automotive and mechanical engineering industries as an intralogistic communication standard for mobile robot fleets — worldwide.

The VDA and VDMA working groups are driving the topic VDA 5050 communication standard moving forward with lots of energy. Through the branches of German companies outside Europe, the VDA 5050 manages strategy papers and conversations with local intralogistics decision makers overseas.

And right here, at this point, there is also a risk. Because even effectively standardized intralogistics must remain flexible. Even though we are 100 percent convinced that the most powerful variant of intralogistics is achieved via VDA 5050 integration, we must not stop looking closely, listening carefully and finding the best individual solution for the intralogistics scenario on site.

"Standardized intralogistics must also focus on operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness. To cover ever new use cases automatically."

In practice, despite all the euphoria, we will continue to encounter special framework conditions or infrastructural legacy issues that make complete VDA 5050 integration impossible, not economic or simply not useful. It is then crucial not simply to break off the conversation, but to dive deeper into the specifics and nature of the company's intralogistics processes — regardless of interfaces initially. We owe this pragmatism to companies that invest in intelligent intralogistics.

This will also be part of a practice-oriented understanding of standardized interfaces: being able to calculate where their benefits are for whom and how great. And where “detours” via integrators or Custom Developments make more sense for the scenario and local people than, for example, buying new things, re-tendering, starting from scratch.  

In short: Even standardized intralogistics must be concerned with operational performance and profitability. It's about always covering new use cases automatically. But this is a development that is taking place at different speeds.

Currently, companies with complex supply chains and high volumes of goods movement are certainly benefiting the most from centrally orchestrating mixed fleets of all sizes via VDA 5050. Because this is about efficiency, flexibility, reliability and scalability — all parameters that a central control center system or management platform measurably increases.

In our experience, these are currently primarily medium-sized to large companies that strive to improve their internal material flows through digitization or mobile, robot-controlled automation. We are increasingly seeing them in the automotive sector, in the pharmaceutical industry, the food & beverage sector and, most recently, increasingly in battery production.

In our experience, the VDA 5050 interface shows its strengths particularly where companies are in a significant growth phase. Because this is also very much about efficiency, flexibility and, above all, scalability across multiple locations.

Of course, this “ideal case” is not always true. And that is exactly the point at this point: For me, acting in a performance-oriented manner means evaluating the deployment scenarios in an open-ended manner — and then finding the best solution.

Despite all the pride that we supporters and co-developers in particular feel about VDA 5050, we have to ask ourselves again and again: Does using VDA 5050 serve the scenario and the people in it?

In the vast majority of cases, the answer will be yes. And if not, then it's time to stay mobile!

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