A world record that makes history: SYNAOS manages the largest VDA 5050 fleet in the industry at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles

Text: Julian Borchert-al-Huribi | Photos: Henning Scheffen

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The Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles plant in Hannover-Stöcken is legendary: since the mid-1950s, the globally admired VW Bus has been built here. Today, the plant also produces the Caddy, Crafter, Amarok, and since 2022, the all-electric ID.BUZZ.

However, what is not widely known is that this plant not only produces legendary vehicles but also holds a spectacular world record. What happens in the vast halls of the plant is unique in the industry. Here, automation history is written daily.

Vehicle parts delivered every minute – by the world's largest VDA 5050 fleet

Anyone who steps into the brightly lit plant halls and thus into the intralogistics gets an immediate sense of what makes this place record-breaking – and that the ubiquitous mobile robots of various categories and sizes play a central role. Since 2021, these robots have taken over the intralogistics material supply: a total of nearly 100 automated underride robots from MLR and 40 automated tugger trains from Goetting, manufactured by Linde. They move smoothly along the pathways, reliably delivering bulk goods, vehicle parts, and body components to the numerous production lines every minute.

Each of these robots communicates with SYNAOS's central control system, the Intralogistics Management Platform (IMP), via the VDA 5050 interface standard. Nowhere else in the world is there currently the orchestration of such a large mobile robot fleet using a unified communication standard taking place as at VWN.

Mobile robots ensure production-critical just-in-sequence processes

The more one delves into the automated intralogistics processes on site, the more impressive the operations become: the automated mobile robot fleet serves various logistics scenarios, such as just-in-time and just-in-sequence deliveries.

“The biggest challenge we face in automation here is the continuous provision of just-in-sequence material. Simply put: the red side mirror must arrive at the red transporter at the right moment,” explains Steffen Strickrodt, Vice President Customer Success at SYNAOS. “Moreover, we are talking about an assembly line here. This means the lines are all interconnected. Any delay in sequence has immediate direct impacts on the entire system.”

The assembly line is now almost fully automated. How exactly does the sequence material reach the respective production line? Steffen Strickrodt continues: “From the material arrival at the truck transfer ramps, the material is brought in so-called large load carriers to internal supermarkets. Within these logistics supermarkets, the just-in-sequence containers are then prepared by an employee. This employee places the material at a transfer point, from where it is automatically transported to the production line.”

Once the sequence material leaves the supermarket on a robot, "the SYNAOS IMP takes over the control of the transport robots and brings the material automatically to the line", continues Strickrodt. Currently, 9,000 racks are moved each day. Annually, the robotic colleagues of the world's largest VDA 5050 fleet cover approximately 300,000 kilometers of automated travel distance.

Future of intralogistics: VWN achieves an "outstanding level of automation"

“VWN had the vision that the entire intralogistics should be automated,” recounts Dr. Lennart Bochmann, CPO, CRO & Co-Founder of SYNAOS. “We were part of this vision from the very beginning. After various project phases, a ramp-up was conducted, with more robots, new processes, and new source-sink relationships constantly being added. We have now reached a status where we stably control over 135 devices, cover all necessary source-sink relationships, and ensure the constant supply of materials every day.”

Dr. Wolfgang Hackenberg, CEO & Co-Founder of SYNAOS, summarizes the signals this intralogistics solution sends to the entire industry: “The future of intralogistics is happening here. We have achieved an outstanding level of automation. This will have impacts on the automotive industry and already affects other sectors. Anyone wanting to experience the pinnacle of scalable, standards-based automation and the seamless integration of software and hardware should come and see for themselves here at VWN in Hannover.”