Open Access

Memane Saurav Sudih

• Industry 4.0 and smart factories have brought significant advancements in manufacturing processes, particularly in intralogistics. A key factor which forms the basis for creating smart intralogistics systems is data. However, there exist several data-related issues that hamper the efficiency of the intralogistics process such as data unavailability, poor data quality, inconsistent data, or underutilization of available data. The challenge is to identify, categorize, evaluate, and solve these issues. Overcoming this will help organizations understand the most impactful challenges. By analysing real-world scenarios and interviewing industry experts, the problems present within the intralogistics process that are caused by the previously mentioned data-related factors are identified. The identified issues are clustered, and the clusters are characterized. A literature review explores the existing solutions or approaches to overcome these limitations. Subsequently finding out if the identified problems can be solved with current technologies and approaches or further research and development is needed. Next, a framework is developed which will act as a guide on the classification, evaluation and prioritization of the identified challenges. In the final part, the framework is validated on an industry specific use case and its limitations and future scope are discussed. This master thesis emphasizes the significance of data in intralogistics processes by identifying and addressing data-related issues. The outcome on one hand is state-of-the-art solutions for the identified problems and on the other hand is a framework which will support businesses in determining how to tackle data-related issues to gain most benefit with respect to efficiency, productivity, flexibility and quality.