Highly fluctuating order structures with short-term peaks, constant changes in batch sizes and unpredictable orders from day-to-day make the environment the Distribution Center Nuremberg (DCN) is working in extremely complex. As one of the largest distribution centers within Siemens, it delivers to more than 25.000 customers worldwide and handles volumes between 12.000 and 22.000 order lines every day. To keep it´s fulfilment rate of almost 100% flexibility and speed are key elements of it´s operations. Thus, it has to constantly increase the output rate with the existing set up. Additionally, the DCN has ambitious sustainability goals, like becoming carbon neutral with own operations by 2030. With the help of automation and digitalization the global master DC becomes a blueprint for digital and sustainable end-to-end delivery chain management within Siemens.

A closed-loop digital twin of the distribution center was developed and connected to the cloud: a digital twin of the whole warehouse was created in the material flow simulation software Tenomatix Plant Simulation. The model was fed with current data from the warehouse management system and additional conditions, like how many employees are available for the respective work stations. In several steps, different variations of the simulation were run to come to the best possible situation for the next day in terms of capacity utilization and cost-effectiveness. By simulating extreme load and deadline scenarios, bottlenecks and error message hotspots could be identified. 
As concerns sustainability, the first step was to get transparency about energy consumers within warehouse operations. A cloud-based energy monitoring system was installed to gain full transparency about the energy consumption in real time. In the next step actions are taken to optimize resource utilization and energy management to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the warehouse.