Logistics of the Future | Free Documentary

uh modern logistics it would be hard to imagine our daily digital lives without them as consumers we can shop online every day and any hour of the day we expect everything to arrive on time whether clothing printer spare parts or a set of screws according to statistics database statista online shopping is booming in 2018 courier express and parcel services the so-called cep sector delivered around 3.5 billion shipments in germany alone and this is an upward trend but how does all this work so smoothly safely and on time after all we live in turbulent times digitalization

climate crisis growing world population and political and economic instability how does the logistics industry rise to such challenges for answers to these questions we need to delve deep into the world of modern logistics our film takes us into huge fully connected warehouses watching as fleets of cargo planes are prepared for takeoff at night and accompanying couriers on delivery bikes on the last mile to the customer we look at one of the world's largest logistics providers at work deutsche post dhl group from 1989 this company has grown from germany's state-owned federal postal service deutsche bundespost into

a public limited company since 2002 the originally american express parcel and letter service dhl has been part of the group our trip into the world of logistics starts in the netherlands in berlin to be precise located here is a smart warehouse that's as big as 18 football pitches put together around 100 000 parcels are handled here every day and in the middle of this fast facility is a parcel we have an extra special interest in a member of staff has just received information on the screen of his smart glasses telling him where to take it

in today's smart warehouses machines and computers now do jobs so people no longer have to but what actually happens when people hand over control to machines a good example is our parcel it only looks like it's alone on this great long journey because once it has a code it's tracked in the system so on its long journey from this point onwards it will be fully monitored by highly complex camera and computer systems it will actually only briefly pass through human hands someone who has helped shape this fully digital process is rick vandenberg he knows exactly

how the smart warehouse works and is in constant contact sharing information with international logistics experts from deutsche post dhl every more looking into solutions of robotization working together with human workers within within the warehouse on one hand but also artificial intelligence and big data crunching is getting more and more important in a whole warehouse like this where you have four six to eight hundred people working you collect a lot of data of volume of handling done within windows solution and now we're learning how to use that data analyze that data to even within our our

supply chain find bottlenecks find improvements based on terabytes of data and also assist our customer in almost predicting their forecast and almost saying look if you change this or that in the process we can find a more efficient flow outwards toward your end customer however modern logistics have not only existed since digitalization logistics originated in the military the romans already organized supplies for their armies since the 1970s if not before the importance of logistics so transport handling and storage has increased internationally [Music] today logistics consists of local networks like manufacturers dealers and logistics and waste

disposal contractors together they ensure the so-called value chain from the source of the raw material through to the product and its eventual disposal to understand what all this means for modern logistics companies we talk to a top international supply chain expert dhl supply chain is probably one of deutsche post dhl group's least visible business areas for end users but it is one that affects our daily lives the most we are responsible for ensuring the goods we all consume and need are in the right place at the right time we currently employ 140 000 people worldwide

we grow at double digit rates every year hiring as many staff as that would not even be possible finding enough specialists to join us to master this feat of logistics is a challenge we are forced to automate and digitalize more to rise to this situation and achieve high efficiency and process accuracy because after all you want the right product to arrive at your home and not something someone else might have ordered these are services the company is aiming to provide without generating harmful greenhouse gas emissions by no later than 2050. initiatives like solar power production

and above all electromobility will help to achieve this goal for instance by using their own co2 neutral electric delivery van the street scooter this is also to be powered by a hydrogen engine in the near future every day we have to work at becoming more efficient and more sustainable and at delivering on our promise to customers to be carbon neutral another aspect really is also about geopolitical change we are seeing more and more protectionism and we now have to adjust supply chains accordingly supply chains that previously operated very globally brexit is of course the word

on everyone's lips right now and the key here is good preparation for our customers so supply chains can continue to run reasonably smoothly as consumers we are triggering the growth in logistics worldwide with our orders it's really at the shipping stage when it becomes apparent how reliably a parcel service is able to handle the increasing volume of shipments we are now facing state of the art technologies are used in warehouses across the globe to ensure customers receive their orders on time in the near future will logistics form the backbone of our society more than ever

before we leave our logistics world for a moment to head to hamburg to pay a visit to a specialist in future [Music] trends of course it's all about anticipating the future and developing your best strategies this means that if we know the future we know the desired future we can develop our strategies in good time and perhaps be faster than the competition logistics is the backbone i always say that logistics is our operating system actually it's the operating system for the whole world and just like with the operating system on your computer where no program

will run without it logistics is the city operating system the global operating system enabling us to run the whole economy on it there's one place we can watch this operating system at work a place that almost never sleeps we're in leipzig the largest dhl air freight center in the world this deutsche post dhl hub runs like a whole airport in its own right only here it's not passengers being checked in but goods every night hundreds and thousands of documents parcels and goods from all over the world arrive here they are then sorted customs cleared and

loaded onto other planes for onward transport every six minutes dhl's own cargo jets or those of partner airlines land here at night they have to be unloaded and loaded in a very short space of time so they can take off again only by maintaining this pace can goods be delivered on time only like this can we as customers open our parcels the morning after placing an order it's 7 30 p.m this is when the air hub shift starts also for its boss ralph van durak from the network control center he and his team will be

monitoring all processes during the night ahead by 10 pm if not before the facility will be working flat out so what's key here let's get uh evening or rather night is falling tonight we're expecting about 70 planes tonight we will sort 350 000 to 400 000 shipments which we will fly to 50 destinations [Music] then at the strike of 10 pm it's time from the outside to a lay person it looks like chaos is breaking out inside the hub nothing could be further from the truth a world rehearsed team of over 2 500 people gets

going they unload stow pack heave lift load and transport in continuous cycles it might look like a concert of chaos but it is actually a well-oiled machine a choreography of people machines and software the planes coming in at night 70 of them are coordinated by our teams you can see in the background here this means as the flights approach they are also monitored once landed the planes are moved into their parking position to then be unloaded in each of these planes there are containers with many many shipments which are then transported to the terminals via

transport wagons and then on the other side they go out again and back to the place one part of the air hub is the sorting center this huge building is just under a kilometer long it holds 47 000 meters of sorting belts covering a distance longer than a marathon around 2 000 tons of freight are handled here every night and amongst this incredible mass of cargo is our parcel it's just arrived and now it has to be unloaded forwarded inside the terminal registered loaded and transported further on its journey the parcels due for delivery tomorrow

morning in frankfurt city center one of our biggest challenges is managing our intercontinental flight network whatever the weather and whatever the delay this means when a plane from hong kong or abu dhabi or wherever it comes from arrives late due to weather issues like these behind me then it's up to our staff to keep calm as always trust in their experience and get the shipments to the right aircraft and to the customer with great skill and experience despite any adverse circumstances just like they always do even on nights like this and sunken [Music] now it's

on the so-called apron every six minutes since 10 pm cargo planes from all over the world have been flying in here this place is all about meticulous precision and of course it's about timing an airbus a330 is due to arrive from amsterdam at half past midnight and it has to leave by no later than 2 30 a.m is that doable the clock's ticking the plane's on time suddenly we are standing in front of a huge roaring jet we're told not to get too close to the turbines otherwise we could get sucked in as soon as

the plane has reached its parking position everything goes very quickly several teams are at the ready and immediately set to work [Music] to ensure everything runs smoothly on the ramp the process is monitored by a dedicated member of staff this is a task that demands nerves of steel with the clock ticking a team of seven people unloads and loads the plane maintenance and refueling goes on at the same time snatching a rare opportunity to chat in this high pressure environment we talk to the ramp supervisor in charge of the team loading and unloading the planes

i'm ramp supervisor and we're here at the dhl hub in leipzig we work right in front of the plane i've been a supervisor for seven years now and with my team i'm in charge of loading and unloading [Applause] the greatest risk weather-wise is when we have thunderstorms if there's a thunderstorm within a five kilometer radius we have to stop loading or in heavy rain we stop so the plane doesn't get too wet inside and the biggest danger for us is also always having to work in the dark on night shifts lots of traffic lots of

hustle and bustle and the pressure to get the planes out on time [Music] we are unloading at the moment here the most important thing is to check the cargo coming in and to make sure everything's in order the same goes for outbound flights when the planes go out checking the cargo is properly secured that dangerous goods are secured so that the cargo is properly loaded and that everything goes out properly and safely [Music] we're seeing a constant upsurge the volume of fright keeps rising every year this is really noticeable especially as we edge towards christmas

volumes keep going up every week bit by bit key here is good management and keeping your cool as well as safety first to make sure no one gets hurt and that aircraft handling goes smoothly this cargo carrier is ready for takeoff it took less than two hours now it's heading for bergamo in italy it's due to be unloaded there in about an hour after the co-pilot has personally done another check off it goes the plane is being pushed back into position then it disappears into the night but things are far from done at the leipzig

hub they work here through to the early hours of the morning in all weathers almost 365 days a year our parcel will be delivered tomorrow morning in frankfurt is the future of logistics already being shaped here at places like this hub and how will logistics evolve [Music] autonomous logistics is of course a big field that will see many processes fully automated from entire infrastructure and intra-logistics to urban logistics and final delivery we can imagine autonomous shops which like autonomous cars driving around the city will bring goods to customers and completely staffless stores going the last

mile to the customer so it's like the customer has the shop on their doorstep the next day our parcel has almost made it we're in frankfurt city centre this special container has been here in front of the district court for two years now basically it works very much like the colossus of leipzig but this little city hub is not even 10 meters long it is loaded with shipments and parcels by a courier driver in a delivery van from here it continues by muscle power bicycle couriers pick up the parcels and deliver them across the city

what's this last mile delivery all about this city hub allows us to have a transit hub very close to our customers in the city center it's extremely hard to find suitable logistics space in the city where you can start early in the morning sort and have access and this micro depot solves exactly this problem the city of frankfurt has kindly provided us with three parking spaces to set up the depot which means from here we can reach our customers locally by bike so this definitely solves the problem of real estate availability then obviously there is

the environmental aspect by delivering by bike we save about 20 tons of co2 per year this is roughly how much co2 two and a half delivery vans would produce in a year that's the saving we have here the third advantage of this micro depot is the positive impact on traffic flow in the city centre because courier vehicles are no longer clogging up whole streets double parking and parking in no waiting zones because even when we deliver traffic flow can continue quite normally our parcel has the last few yards to go in the dense traffic of

a big city bicycles are of course unbeatable they are eco-friendly fast and maneuverable and most importantly the parcel is on time [Music] we noticed it was getting harder and harder with big delivery vans here in the city center with more and more traffic and fewer loading bays it's busier and busier so as far as the actual city center is concerned with our bikes we are incredibly flexible and much faster than with vehicles like that with vans while they have to drive around here we get through straight away especially around here on the sea or the

city center the banking district where no one can normally get through we get through on our bikes and we can make our delivery stops there that's the big advantage the stakeholders goods are handled shipped loaded and unloaded worldwide at this speed day and night a never-ending cycle monitored and controlled by computers artificial intelligence robots and guided and performed by humans who is behind inventions like this and what does the future hold large companies don't reveal every stage of development for current or upcoming products but here at this place we can find out about the near

future deutsche post dhl's innovation center near bonn exhibits technical products that are already in use or soon will be there are drones here that fly along high racks and help with inventory or transport robots that autonomously follow employees ready to carry any load or monitoring sensors that check the temperature of medicines during transport the the three top trends we're currently seeing that will have a very strong impact on logistics in the medium term are most definitely automation and robotics iot the internet of things which in particular ensures greater transparency in our flows of goods and

the third topic we regard as extremely relevant is artificial intelligence which we are already seeing on a daily basis but which will also have a similar impact on our industry in the future modern logistics are undergoing constant progress at the interface of research development testing and application the near future has definitely already begun here technologies like artificial intelligence collaborative robotics or delivery by drone are already in use here what's more logistics themselves are part of another trend the trend of mobility so where are these two mega trends headed mobility is actually about three factors the

first is zero emissions we want to offer mobility with the lowest possible emissions the second is zero waste we also have to think about zero waste across all automobile production processes and mobility offers and thirdly there is zero latency this is really about getting from a to b as fast as we can we see this especially in logistics we don't want to wait another three days so the delay should be as short as possible which means we want to get everywhere as quickly as possible this is also shown by the hyperloop that allows us to

travel at 1 000 kilometers per hour around the world and that's the goal zero emissions zero waste and zero latency it seems to us the logistics mega trend is data driven automation and innovation logistics also stand out with their internationality precision and speed but at their core logistics services remain charmingly unchanged since the beginning of the postal sector around 500 years ago it's still all about delivering on time and companies like deutsche post dhl group work to achieve this goal using state of the art methods day and night and they do so in ways that

are now safer and more environmentally friendly than ever [Music] [Music] you