Glossary · System coordination, integration and orchestration
Material-flow coordination
Also known as: Material flow control
German: Materialflusskoordination
In manufacturing and intralogistics, material-flow coordination is the planning and control of how materials, parts and products move between stations, buffers and storage, so that each station receives what it needs at the right time without congestion.
- System integration
In one sentence
Material-flow coordination controls how parts and materials move between stations, buffers and storage so each station is supplied without congestion.
Example
A material-flow controller releases pallets from a buffer to the assembly stations only when the downstream station reports free capacity, preventing a jam on the conveyor.
How it applies
- Engineering: Model the material flow with buffers, transfer points and capacities before writing control logic. Simulation helps size buffers and find bottlenecks.
- Commissioning: Test not only nominal throughput but also recovery after a stop: which station restarts first, and how full buffers drain.
- Operation: Key indicators are Starvation state (station waits for material) and Upstream blocking (station cannot pass material on). Both point to coordination or capacity problems.
- Documentation: Describe the material-flow concept, buffer behavior and the operator actions for clearing jams. Where people enter conveyor areas to clear jams, link to the relevant safeguarding information such as Lockout/tagout (LOTO).
Material-flow coordination vs. production dispatching
Production dispatching decides which order is released to which resource and when. Material-flow coordination then moves the physical material so the released order can actually run. Dispatching works on orders; material-flow coordination works on carriers, parts and transport resources.