Merck KGaA is a German company in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry and is sponsoring a first fellowship in the Graduate School of Logistics starting January 1, 2022. The focus of the joint research and development work is on simulation-based planning and control of logistics processes in the production of specialty chemicals.
Compared to mass products, specialty chemicals are subject to a short product life cycle and are produced in small, demand-driven quantities. The combination of changing demand and the need for short-term adjustments requires flexible production planning. Up to now, the focus has been on chemical and plant-specific aspects, but in the future this will have to be extended to include the associated logistical processes. Against this background, the aim of the project is to develop a simulation-based tool that can be used to analyze product- and location-dependent logistical processes and identify potential bottlenecks.
The developed solution will be elaborated and implemented in cooperation with the company Merck KGaA in Darmstadt. The doctoral supervisor and first supervisor is Prof. Dr.-Ing. Uwe Clausen, member of the board of GSofLog, director of the Institute for Transport Logistics at TU Dortmund University and director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML.