E-Commerce / Retail Smart automation of unpredictable processes Electronic commerce is setting new standards and challenging brick-and- mortar retailers. Fast delivery, maximum variety of products and absolute price transparency combined with seamless logistics are convincing advantages for online consumers. Smooth logistics necessitates digiti- zation of the supply chain and the implementation of automation solutions in warehouses. Business models in e-commerce demand highly 昀氀exible supply chains with a holistic approach that permits the seamless integration of retail, 昀椀nance and logistics processes into one transparent entity. Against this backdrop, solutions in e-commerce have to meet many demands simultaneously. These range from the interests of exclusively online retailers through to classic retail outlets and the distribution service provider or brand-name manufacturer. Mobile end devices, internet research Digitization is creating on the goods-to-person principle. Human- with a purchase option and exchange via intelligent intralogistics machine collaborations such as the social media have now become part and AutoPiQ order picking technology from parcel of the buying process. As a result, In the future ever more powerful fore- Swisslog are capable of opening up areas it is almost certain that the commercial casting tools will be available to the to automation that were previously an signi昀椀cance of e-commerce will increase retail sector that will be capable of exclusively manual domain. Particularly further in coming years. Even conservative predicting consumer behavior more forward-looking: even today Swisslog can estimates for the year 2020 predict on- accurately and will allow targeted adver- already seamlessly depict the transitions line sales in excess of 4 trillion US dollars. tising. Smart purchasing may require between the requirements in brick-and- The boundaries between online shopping only two clicks by the consumer, but it mortar retailing and e-commerce in and brick-and-mortar retailers are is based on extremely complex and hybrid systems. They are capable of both becoming more blurred and entering heterogeneous logistics networks – order picking for pallets and single-item into a long-term symbiosis. Whereas we characterized by a large number of data shipments from a warehouse. are currently still busy mapping the interfaces and an interchange between intermeshing of internal and external automated and manual activities, for logistics processes in real time, the trend example in the storage and picking of is moving towards predictive analytics goods. The latest automation technol- of the available mass of data. This means ogies from Swisslog are already provi- that we are using digital information ding the e-commerce and retail sectors �Industrie 4.0 solutions from 阀阀 intelligently enough to allow the next with networked software and robot- optimize the throughput of goods, consumer action to be predicted based logistics concepts that precisely minimize downtime and ensure both accurately. serve the nerve centers of the logistics transparency and high-speed responses chain – for instance, technologies based throughout the entire supply chain. 22�23