The organisation of internal material and goods flows is a highly complex task. In order to guarantee smooth processes within the company, the required goods must be available at the right time, in the right place, in the right quantity and in the right quality. The Internet in particular means that intralogistics services have to compete internationally. In addition, customer requirements regarding delivery reliability and delivery times as well as documentation of the logistics process are becoming ever more stringent. Shorter production process lead times mean that the logistics process must also be constantly adapted.
Information and communication technologies (ICT) can effectively support intralogistics processes, e.g. by controlling and regulating machines, systems or production processes or by supporting finance, human resources and materials management at a business level. Added to this is the potential that lies in the further development of existing technologies and the optimisation of business processes.

Against this backdrop, the study on the future of the German intralogistics industry aims to structure the socio-economic environment for the intralogistics industry and to formulate the requirements for future intralogistics from the customer's perspective. To this end, the main influencing factors were identified, fundamental development trends of these factors were recorded with a time horizon of 2020+ and their effects on intralogistics were described.

The result was various scenarios for the German intralogistics sector 2020+, including the development paths for these future scenarios.