The new Jungheinrich spare parts centre in Kaltenkirchen.

About 400 European logistics specialists congregated at the Atlantic Hotel in Hamburg, Germany last week for a three-day conference with the theme The Future in Stock.

Organised by German industrial truck maker Jungheinrich, the inaugural convention will kick off a new event series devoted to the future of intralogistics and related sectors.

Jungheinrich head of corporate image Dr Philipp Pries tells Forkliftaction.com News that the Hamburg-headquartered firm wanted to be first in the field for identifying intralogistics trends, to set new [direction] for new products and solutions.

The summit, featuring presentations and discussions on the latest industry trends was attended by people ranging from industry experts, clients and business partners to friends of the company.

"Intralogistics has been the vocation and passion of our enterprise for the last 60 years," says Hans-Georg Frey, chairman of the Jungheinrich management board. "We have created this summit in order to promote cross-industry networking and knowledge transfer.

Keynote topics consisted of The Interaction of Management, Innovative Technologies and New Work Organisation Methods; Alternative Future Scenarios and Their Consequences for Trading and the Economy; and Rules of the Global Internet Society.



Speakers at the summit included Prof Dr Hans-Jrg Bullinger, past president of the Fraunhofer Society; Hamburg-based trends researcher Prof Peter Wippermann; and Dr Jan Dietrich Mller, senior vice president at Deutsche Post DHL. Speakers for Jungheinrich include Dr Klaus-Dieter Rosenbach, member of the board of management engineering, as well as Dirk Schulz, head of after-sales service.

The summit included a tour of the Jungheinrich spare parts centre in the town of Kaltenkirchen, north of Hamburg. The new centre is an example of the implementation of a number of fundamental trends that were spotlighted in presentations.

According to Pries, the Kaltenkirchen centre is a showcase for the interaction of management, innovative technologies and new work organisation methods. For example, office space at the spare parts centre takes up 3,800 sqm (40,903 sqft.), designed on an open space principle. Transparent and direct communication paths between staff members are the obvious advantage of this spatial arrangement.