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302
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Introduction
Expertise in logistics and SCM, digitalization, AI & HCI, sustainability, human factor (Industry 5.0), OR (DEA), retail, biotech, health care and humanitarian logistics
Current institution
Additional affiliations
April 2020 - September 2021
January 2018 - December 2022
October 2017 - September 2018
Editor roles
Education
July 2011 - October 2019
May 2007 - May 2007
Publications
Publications (302)
Artificial intelligence (AI) applications are the core challenge for engineering and management science concepts in production and logistics within the next decade. This study analyses the application of AI instances in route planning as a central part of logistics management from an empirical case perspective for retail logistics in Germany. The m...
Manual order picking (OP) is still the predominant warehousing system in brick-and-mortar grocery retailing, making human workers an integral part of operations. Besides human capabilities, the storage system design was found to impact performance, quality, and worker well-being as the major outcomes of OP systems. In warehousing practice, full-pal...
Including uncertainty in data envelopment analysis (DEA) is vital in order to achieve
stable and reliable performance evaluations for the field of operational research as
business environments are becoming increasingly volatile and unpredictable. Robust
DEA models with budgeted uncertainty have been attracting particular attention in the literature...
Purpose
Digitalization is changing organizations with positive and negative impacts such as increased autonomy on the one hand and increased surveillance and control on the other hand. In this context, new modes of control occur: in addition to managerial control, new modes of control are multi-directed, stemming from colleagues, customers and unde...
Retail logistics is facing higher levels of disruptions, forcing retailers to enhance resilience. However, resilience initiatives such as higher safety stock levels often come at the expense of lower operational efficiency through higher cost levels and/or reduced outcomes. This study offers a novel approach for addressing this critical resilience-...
Increasing labor cost levels and workforce shortages have caused retailers to pay increased attention to their order‐fulfillment operations, which continue to largely depend on manual order picking systems. The operations and logistics management literature suggests that optimizing tertiary packaging, which groups products into full unit loads for...
The advent of Industry 5.0 brought significant changes regarding manufacturing and logistics applications, prioritizing the operator's welfare at the core of its principles. Industry 5.0, complementing its predecessors, strongly emphasises the creation of production systems focused on people and human-technology interaction for system productivity,...
Zusammenfassung
Im folgenden Beitrag wird die Rolle digitaler Technik in der Transformation von Arbeitsaufgaben und der Wahrnehmung von Autonomie und Kontrolle durch Beschäftigte in Hochzuverlässigkeitsorganisationen untersucht, insbesondere in Krankenhäusern und Flughäfen. Der Fokus liegt auf dem Einfluss der digitalen Transformation, die sowohl n...
High quality data is essential to the success of machine learning projects, especially for training, but also after deployment. Even slight differences between training and runtime data may degrade performance. Based on the application case of truck driver stress prediction, we collected physiological, activity, and driving data using an Apple Watc...
Language system diversity is a source of individual differences. Research on human cognition has established that writing direction influences non-linguistic mental schemata such as spatial orientation. However, there is little empirical evidence of its impact on task performance. We examine whether task performance in manual order-picking is highe...
Modeling human behaviors has become increasingly relevant to improving the performance of manual order-picking systems. However, although a vast corpus of literature has recently started to consider the human factors in these systems, several gaps remain uncovered. Specifically, mental and physical human factors, like learning and fatigue, and quan...
Purpose
Prior literature has widely established that the design of storage locations impacts order picking task performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance impact of unit loads, e.g. pallets or rolling cages, utilized by pickers to pack products after picking them from storage locations.
Design/methodology/approach
An...
Purpose
Increasing personnel costs and labour shortages have pushed retailers to give increasing attention to their intralogistics operations. We study hybrid order picking systems, in which humans and robots share work time, workspace and objectives and are in permanent contact. This necessitates a collaboration of humans and their mechanical cowo...
Learning from individual experiences has been described as an important predictor of organizational performance. In contrast, little is known about how prior success and failure experiences at the team-level impact performance and whether goal accomplishment moderates the learning process. In this study, we investigate 573 dispatcher-driver teams t...
The transition from fossil to climate-neutral energy sources and supply chains has become a pressing challenge. Green hydrogen is expected to play an important role in the decarbonization of the global economy because of its specific versatility. Given the recent imminent energy shortages in Europe, supply of green hydrogen becomes an even more imp...
We announce an LDIC 2024 special session on “Sustainable Warehousing” and invite contributions addressing, for example, the following issues – with additional topics being highly welcome, too.
#Analysis of economic sustainability of warehouse operations.
#Design of efficient warehouse processes.
#New technology implementation in warehouses.
#Analys...
Picking operations inside a warehouse are the major share of the total costs of retailing operations. Optimization and harmonization of operations is therefore crucial in the economy of a successful business. In this paper we consider the case of a leading German grocery retailer company and we adapt to their case a Mixed Integer Linear Program sol...
This paper contributes to the issue of big data analysis and data quality with the specific field of time synchronization. As a highly relevant use case, big data analysis of work stress and strain factors for driving professions is outlined. Drivers experience work stress and strain due to trends like traffic congestion, time pressure or worsening...
Advanced technologies are introduced in warehouse operations, rendering the interplay between human worker behavior and information systems (IS) a critical issue. We investigate how IS supports manual order picking by studying how visual color-coding
information on picking locations provided through personal digital assistants accelerates search an...
Manual order picking, the process of retrieving stock keeping units from their storage location to fulfil customer orders, is one of the most labour-intensive and costly activity in modern supply chains. To improve the outcome of order picking systems, automated and robotized components are increasingly introduced creating hybrid order picking syst...
The growing frequency, impact, and complexity of natural- and human-made- disasters have resulted in an increased attention toward humanitarian logistics management practices. With most disasters having a global scale due to the high level of interconnectedness between supply chains, the adequate provision of humanitarian assistance through streaml...
Digital applications in health care are a concurrent research and management question, where implementation experiences are a core field of information systems research. It also contributes to fighting pandemic crises like COVID-19 because contactless information flow and speed of diagnostics are improved. This paper presents three digital applicat...
Manual picker-to-parts order picking (OP) systems are usually laborious and cost-intensive. Nevertheless, they are still predominant in warehouse operations of traditional brick-and-mortar grocery retailers. Storage assignment strategies are highly relevant for the outcomes of OP systems. Aspiring to improve picking performance and worker health, t...
Learning curve literature in operations management has established that the accumulation of output enhances volume-based experience and leads to per-unit performance improvements. However, little is known how experiences related to specific task characteristics affect performance. Using a large-scale longitudinal dataset from a German brick-and-mor...
This study gathered evidence from Germany and the United States on public opinion towards fair distribution of COVID-19 vaccines across the world. Analytical Hierarchy Process and discrete choice experiments were used for this purpose. The sample is nationally representative of adults (aged 18 and above) for both countries using quotas on age, gend...
Designing sustainable warehouse operations in the sense of the triple bottom line approach with environmental, social, and economic sustainability aspects is a key challenge for most brick-and-mortar grocery retailers. These retailers still rely on manual storage and material handling systems to process high-volume low-mix orders. They design picke...
Purpose
Digital technologies comprehensively change work processes and working conditions. However, the use of digital technologies and the modes of collaboration between technologies and human workers differ in terms of specific work organization and automatization. Referring to the job demands-resources model (JD-R), this paper investigates job d...
With the rapid increase of digitization and desire for contactless shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, online grocery sales keep growing fast. Correspondingly, optimized policies for order picking are nowadays central in omnichannel supply chains, not only within dedicated warehouses but also in grocery stores while processing online orders. In...
Vor dem Hintergrund ansteigender Verkehrsmengen, der Förderung der aktiven Mobilität und der mangelnden Sicherheit für Kinder im Straßenverkehr wird im vorliegenden Beitrag ein Konzept vorgestellt, wie mithilfe von augmentierter Realität (AR) und dem neuen Mobilfunkstandard 5G Grundschulkinder die Teilnahme am Straßenverkehr mit digitaler Unterstüt...
Digitalization supports the development of platform organizations, changing work relationships between individuals and organizations. This paper analyzes workers’ perceptions of autonomy and control in for- and non-profit platform organizations. Based on a mixed-methods study combining qualitative interviews and a quantitative questionnaire in digi...
Yard management is crucial for logistics and transport operations due to the high influence towards smooth and efficient intralogistics on dedicated depot sites of logistics service providers. Yet, this field has interesting new insights to offer, especially regarding prioritizing and decision-making concepts with the support of Multi-Criteria Deci...
The problem of batching orders and routing orders in picker-to-parts warehouses is intensively studied in the research literature, but the impact of individual differences among pickers or forklift operators and their skills are rarely taken into consideration. Therefore, we propose a model that does simultaneously order batching and routing while...
Human operators will remain to play an essential role in picker-to-parts order picking systems despite increasing digitalization and automation of warehouse processes. While manual order picking is a laborious and cost-intensive task in warehousing, it is extensively examined in the logistics and supply chain management literature. However, the ope...
Despite ongoing calls for a more even global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, there remains a great disparity between high- and low-income countries. We conducted representative surveys among the adult population in the United States (N=1,000) and Germany (N=1,003) in June 2021 to assess the public opinion in these countries on distributive justi...
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global challenge to humankind. To improve the knowledge regarding relevant, efficient and effective COVID-19 measures in health policy, this paper applies a multi-criteria evaluation approach with population, health care, and economic datasets from 19 countries within the OECD. The comparative investigation was based on a...
When digitalizing work, organizations face the challenge of analyzing, evaluating, and mitigating a potential increase in mental workload for employees and managers. This paper presents an instrument to assess mental stress and strain in digital work contexts and the related development process and validation. Based on a literature and instrument r...
Bikesharing systems constitute a pivotal pillar to foster sustainable urban mobility. To leverage this potential, information systems (IS) research addresses both (a) decision support systems for operators to increase access to vehicles and (b) mobile app designs for end-users. However, the salient question of situational factors determining when u...
![Causes of incapacitation for work (days of absence, Germany) [91].](publication/356893789/figure/fig3/AS:11431281429622348@1746711862040/Causes-of-incapacitation-for-work-days-of-absence-Germany-91_Q320.jpg)
![Segments of the lumbar spine and compressive loads [103], p. 6.](publication/356893789/figure/fig4/AS:11431281429426214@1746711862541/Segments-of-the-lumbar-spine-and-compressive-loads-103-p-6_Q320.jpg)
Background: A large proportion of logistics jobs still rely on manual labor and therefore place a physical strain on employees. This includes the handling of heavy goods and physiologically unfavorable postures. Such issues pose a risk for employee health and work capability. This article provides a detailed empirical analysis and a decision proces...
Online shopping is growing fast due to the increasingly widespread use of digital services. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the desire for contactless shopping has further changed consumer behavior and accelerated the acceptance of online grocery purchases. Consequently, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are developing omnichannel solutions such...
Digitalization of teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education has gained increasing attention in research in the recent years. While previous research investigated issues of effectiveness, course attendance, and course evaluation from a long-term perspective, the current COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education institutions to digitaliz...
Hydrogen technologies have received increased attention in research and development to foster the shift towards carbon-neutral energy systems. Depending on the specific production techniques, transportation concepts, and application areas, hydrogen supply chains (HSCs) can be anything from part of the energy transition problem to part of the soluti...
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting non-pharmaceutical interventions aspiring to reduce the spread of the virus, e.g., full or partial lockdowns, as well as social distancing measures, lead to increasing at-home consumption and panic buying. The resulting demand peaks for non-cooled perishable items hit the distribution systems of traditional brick...
Purpose: To enable reliable food supply and to remain competitive, grocery retailers need to operate efficient distribution networks. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and apply a multi-criteria evaluation framework considering the complexity of grocery retail warehouses while maintaining the highest possible efficiency.
Methodolo...
Human operators play and will remain to play an essential role in traditional picker-to-parts order picking systems, although we observe an increasing digitalization and automation of warehouse processes. While manual order picking is a laborious and cost-intensive task in warehousing, it is well examined in the logistics and Supply Chain Managemen...
Customers shifting from stationary to online grocery shopping and the
decreasing mobility of an ageing population pose major challenges for the stationary grocery retailing sector. To fulfill the increasing demand for online grocery shopping, traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers use existing store networks to offer customers click-and-collect se...
The COVID-19 pandemic is changing consumer behavior
and accelerating the interest for online grocery purchases. Hence, traditional
brick-and-mortar retailers are developing omnichannel solutions
enabling online purchases in parallel to normal activities. Buy-Online-
Pick-up-in-Store concepts are flourishing in this context, and they are
the topic o...
With the rapid increase of digitization and desire for contactless shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, online grocery sales keep growing fast. Correspondingly, optimized policies for order picking are nowadays central in omnichannel supply chains, not only within dedicated warehouses but also in grocery stores while processing online orders. In...
Customers shifting from stationary to online grocery shopping and the decreasing mobility of an ageing population pose major challenges for the stationary grocery retailing sector. To fulfill the increasing demand for online grocery shopping, traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers use existing store networks to offer customers click-and-collect se...
We conducted representative surveys among the adult population in Germany (n=1,003) and the United States (n=1,000) with discrete choice experiments and analytical hierarchy process items to elicit opinions about global COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Results unveil a high consent towards utilitarian or egalitarian distribution principles, prioritiz...
Die globale humanitäre Logistik in Not- und Krisensituationen sieht sich einer Reihe von Herausforderungen wie steigender Anzahl und Schwere von Katastrophensituationen, steigender Komplexität der globalen Transportnetzwerke sowie gegenüber. In dieser Situation wird in umfassender Weise der Versuch unternommen, erfolgreiche Konzepte der Betriebswir...
The development and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in health care contexts is a concurrent research and management question. Especially for hospitals, the expectations regarding improved efficiency and effectiveness by the introduction of novel AI applications are huge. However, experiences with real-life AI use cases a...
Recent advances in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) have spawned remarkable progress in many scientific fields. Predictive analytics approaches based on artificial neural networks and deep learning as a class of optimization methods show promising results to solve forecast problems. As these approaches are hardly used to unravel workforce p...
Im Notfall hängt das Überleben von einem guten Zusammenspiel aller beteiligten Akteure in der medizinischen Rettungskette ab. Das Forschungsprojekt Euriale hat deshalb das Ziel, den Kommunikationsaustausch von Ersthelfenden bis hin zum Klinikpersonal mit Hilfe digitaler Instrumente zu verbessern.
Methods of multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) from operations research have been applied to provide information for making long-term decisions in the energy sector, and energy policy. For example, in sustainability evaluations, multiple conflicting criteria can be considered. While most MCDM approaches have been applied to evaluate energy system...
Even though the ongoing digital transformation in the forms of artificial intelligence and robotics offer promising concepts on automating warehouse operations, a majority of processes in intralogistics rely on manual human work. Since order picking has been identified as the most labour-intensive, as well as costly activity in warehouses, forklift...
As the German vocational education and training (VET) system, with its dual learning environment in both firms and vocational schools, is an international benchmark, many concepts and projects are aiming to transfer this approach to other countries and education systems. In such contexts, it is important to consider the specific concepts and requir...
The increasing use of information technology (IT) in supply chain management and logistics is connected to corporate advantages and enhanced competitiveness provided by enterprise resource planning systems and warehouse management systems. One downside of advancing digitalization is an increasing dependence on IT systems and the negative effects of...
Although we observe an increasing evolution of technologies, many bricks-and-mortar grocery retailers still rely on human dispatchers and manual route planning. Dispatchers operating in this environment have to solve dynamic planning problems in a short period of time, experiencing situations where there is a lack of information . While a considera...
Purpose
Technological advances regarding artificial intelligence (AI) are affecting the transport sector. Although fully autonomous delivery, or self-driving trucks, are not operating currently, various AI applications have become fixed components of cargo vehicles. Since many research approaches primarily concentrate on the technical aspects of as...
Die Logistikbranche in Deutschland wächst seit Jahren kontinuierlich. Mit ihr steigt auch die Anzahl der Sendungen und Auslieferungen durch Kurier-, Express- und Paketdienste (KEP-Dienste) (vgl. Muschkiet und Schückhaus 2019, S. 357). Auch für die nächsten Jahre ist ein Wachstum der Paketmengen prognostiziert (vgl. Statista 2019a, 2019b).
Update (deadline extended): The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting the retailing industry and forcing retail managers to create new business models, accelerate their digital transformation, and redesign operations. Aspiring to reduce transmission rates, various non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19, e.g., social distancing measures and...
Although resources are scarce and outputs incorporate the potential to save human lives, efficiency measurement endeavors with data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods are not yet commonplace in the research and practice of non-government organizations (NGO) and states involved in humanitarian logistics. We present a boot-strapped DEA window analysi...
Order picking is a crucial but labor- and cost-intensive activity in the retail logistics and e-commerce domain. Comprehensive changes are implemented in this field due to new technologies like AI and automation. Nevertheless, human worker’s activities will be required for quite some time in the future. This fosters the necessity of evaluating manu...
Digitalization is a major trend and challenge in most industries and sectors of societies. Still, quantitative insights regarding the impacts of digitalization are missing. This chapter is reporting a first approach using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for measuring efficiency results of digitalization steps in a retail logistics context. Aspiring...
Digital developments and changes in the production, supply chain and logistics sector as well as specific concepts like automation and Industry 4.0 or the Internet of Things are omnipresent. Especially the human role in such settings experiences important changes, which has not been adequately addressed in research yet. This introduction chapter co...
This book covers topics such as digitalization of production, operations, logistics and supply chains leading to new requirements for human capabilities and collaboration. The content is relevant for research as well as industry as digitalization is shaping all value chain processes anew. A special focus is directed towards an interdisciplinary per...
Die Akzeptanz neuer Technologien im Arbeitsprozess wird durch die Teilhabe von Mitarbeitenden am Veränderungsprozess gefördert. Eine direkte Partizipation kann insbesondere über ein digitales Ideenmanagement ermöglicht werden, das bestehende Konzepte wie Kontinuierliche Verbesserungsprozesse oder Betriebliches Vorschlagswesen weiterentwickelt. Ziel...
Kernelement zum Umgang mit neuen Arbeitswelten ist die Selbstwirksamkeitserwartung der Arbeitskräfte. Insbesondere bei Transport- und Kommissioniertätigkeiten in Produktion, Logistik und Handel kommen zunehmend individualisierte digitale Anwendungen zum Einsatz, die Elemente künstlicher Intelligenz beinhalten. Dazu stellt der Beitrag aus dem Projek...
Purpose: The study uses the results of an efficiency analysis for digitalization within a retail logistics blue-collar work system of professional truck drivers and aims to elaborate an ex-ante efficiency simulation approach for digitalization scenarios.
Methodology: The simulation method combines the efficiency scores of Data Envelopment Analysis...
Purpose: Global supply chains increasingly demand sustainable setups, from the first to the last mile in transportation. Particularly in urban settings, the use of commercial electric vehicles for transport tasks might be a suitable measure to increase overall sustainability. Methodology: For an initial structuring step of this growing research fie...
In the digitisation development of economy, logistics is of central importance due to the linkage of information and material flow throughout supply chains. However, verifiable effects in terms of efficiency have not been empirically shown in many cases yet. Therefore, this paper develops an efficiency analysis to evaluate the impact of changing le...
Order picking has been identified as the most labour-intensive, as well as costly activity within warehouse logistics and is experiencing significant changes due to new technologies in the forms of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. One fundamental question concerns the employees learning progress in human-robot picking systems compared t...
Order picking has been identified as the most labour-intensive, as well as costly activity within warehouse logistics and is experiencing significant changes due to new technologies in the forms of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. One fundamental question concerns the employees learning progress in human-robot picking systems compared t...
Technological advances regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI) are affecting the transport sector. Although fully autonomous delivery or self-driving trucks are not operating in the present but far ahead in the future, various AI applications have become fixed components of cargo vehicles. Since many research approaches primarily concentrate on the...
The increasing use of information technology (IT) in supply chain management and logistics is connected to the impetus that enterprise resource planning systems and warehouse management systems provide corporate advantages and enhance competitive strength. A downside of the advancing digitalization is the increasing dependence on IT systems and the...
Die Logistik als globale innovative Branche erfährt grundlegende Veränderungen durch die fortschreitende Digitalisierung. Es bilden sich neue Geschäftsmodelle heraus und die Arbeitsorganisation wandelt sich. Arbeitsprozesse können digital und transparent erfasst und kontrolliert werden. Der Beitrag untersucht die Auswirkungen dieser technologischen...
Digital logistics processes are not only a technological challenge. In addition, the question of human cognitive strain and human-computer interaction are important success factors for digital logistics work concepts. After a background introduction, conceptual and an analytical frameworks for identifying cognitive strain in digital logistics work...
Order-picking is a crucial but labor- and cost-intensitive activity in the retail logistics domain. Far-reaching changes are implemented in this field due to new technologies in the forms of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. Nevertheless, human worker's activities will be required for quite some time in the future, and therefore investig...
Although artificial intelligence (AI) is receiving much attention, little is known about how its application influences specific work tasks or the efficiency of white-collar work systems. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and apply an efficiency analysis to measure dispatcher's performance in route planning as a typical white-colla...
Available Open Access: https://rdcu.be/bBCfa
Current concept, development, and testing applications in production concerning Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Industry 4.0 (I40), and Internet of Things (IoT) are mainly addressing fully autonomous systems, fostered by an increase in available technologies regarding distributed decision-making, sensors,...
Questions
Questions (2)
Severe measures were taken to prevent humankind from the negative impacts from COVID-19. What would and could happen if we apply the same seriousness and decision power to the climate change risk? At least similar numbers of human lives are endangered, but only on a longer timeframe.
Currently, many self-steering models and systems are in their development phase ("Internet of Things") for logistics. But basis logistics management questions are probably overseen or neglected in the current first wave implementation projects, e.g. the posed question about the incorporation of quality control processes. The example stems from a German logistics service provider working for a food OEM regarding picking and quality control processes (to be switched to automated processes).
