Buyer reference · Every request not assessed
Intralogistics procurement: evidence before a fleet commitment
Sixteen evidence requests for an intralogistics fleet decision: ownership, configuration, acceptance, lifecycle cost and hold conditions. No supplier score or approval.
By Mohammed Cherifi · Hyperion Consulting
Launch gate · Buyer decision
Is there sufficient configuration-specific evidence and a complete operating commitment to justify a controlled fleet rollout?
For: Warehouse operations sponsor, procurement lead, systems integrator and accountable product owner
Six lenses for the same decision
Customer, operator and product value
Which accepted moves, human baseline and operator workload define useful work at this site?
Economics and business viability
Which ownership, integration, recovery, service and exit costs determine cost per successful move?
AI, data, evaluation and HMI
Which task, sensing, planning and HMI behaviors are evaluated under representative conditions?
Complete system architecture
Which robot/fleet-control/software/map/interface versions and site constraints form the purchase scope?
Safety, cybersecurity, compliance and governance
Who owns hazard, threat, data-rights, authority and conformity decisions for the complete system?
Deployment, operations, service and ecosystem
Who commissions, trains, monitors, recovers, supports, updates and retires each part of the operation?
How to use the evidence requests
- Use this as a request for evidence and an ownership map. Every row starts not_assessed; the checklist does not score or approve a supplier.
- Record exact configuration, source, observation window, exposure, exclusions, evidence owner, review date and expiry for the response. Keep confidential replies in the buyer's governed private system.
- VDA identifies version 3.0.0 (March 2026) as current at the source retrieval date. Its interface scope excludes safety, cybersecurity, traffic logic, acceptance procedures and responsibility allocation; assess those separately.
- ISO Open Data records ISO 3691-4:2023 as published, at the to-be-revised stage, and its successor as an unpublished draft at the retrieval date. Confirm the applicable edition and product/system/site/jurisdiction with competent specialists; a draft is not a published standard.
- Use the existing Product System and Evidence Passport to connect claims, requirements, configuration, evidence gaps and the named human decision. Unresolved hold conditions remain visible; a filled checkbox cannot authorize operation.
Sixteen requests before a fleet commitment
Strategy · Not assessed
1. Workflow map, alternatives and value thesis, including work kept with people
Customer, operator and product value
- Accountable role
- Operations sponsor
- Acceptance question
- Which accepted customer outcome improves, for whom, and compared with what?
- Hold condition
- The proposal measures robot activity without an accepted customer outcome.
Discovery · Not assessed
2. Observed baseline for attempted/accepted moves, waiting, errors and person-minutes under declared shifts
Customer, operator and product value
- Accountable role
- Site operations and operator representative
- Acceptance question
- Are population, window, task difficulty and exclusion rules comparable?
- Hold condition
- No measured baseline or an incompatible denominator.
Strategy · Not assessed
3. Acquisition, integration, infrastructure, licenses, energy, operator/recovery work, service, spares and exit cost model
Economics and business viability
- Accountable role
- Product and finance owners
- Acceptance question
- Are benefit, supplier revenue and total cost separated and assumptions sensitivity-tested?
- Hold condition
- Payback omits material lifecycle costs or assumes all released time becomes cash savings.
Productization · Not assessed
4. Named robot, software, controller, map, payload, battery, charger and peripheral versions with compatibility evidence
Complete system architecture
- Accountable role
- System architect and integrator
- Acceptance question
- Does every supplied test apply to the ordered configuration?
- Hold condition
- A component or version differs without impact review and revalidation.
Productization · Not assessed
5. Site survey covering traffic, floors, slopes, loads, people, connectivity, charging and exceptional conditions
Complete system architecture
- Accountable role
- Site and system owners
- Acceptance question
- Are intended use, foreseeable misuse, exclusions and change triggers explicit?
- Hold condition
- The proposed site falls outside the evaluated operating envelope.
Productization · Not assessed
6. Exact VDA 5050 version plus supported message/action/error/factsheet/zone matrix and cross-vendor tests
Complete system architecture
- Accountable role
- Fleet-control and robot suppliers
- Acceptance question
- Which optional features and breaking-version migrations are supported by both sides?
- Hold condition
- The only evidence is an unqualified supports-VDA-5050 statement.
Productization · Not assessed
7. WMS/MES/ERP, door, conveyor, charger and infrastructure interface contracts with failure behavior
Complete system architecture
- Accountable role
- Integrator and enterprise IT
- Acceptance question
- What happens on duplicate, delayed, lost or out-of-order work requests?
- Hold condition
- Responsibility for an external interface or inconsistent task state is missing.
Productization · Not assessed
8. Representative successful, failed, aborted and difficult-task results with acceptance criteria and denominators
AI, data, evaluation and HMI
- Accountable role
- Product evaluation owner
- Acceptance question
- Do evaluation slices cover actual loads, obstructions, traffic and sensor degradation?
- Hold condition
- A demonstration or isolated easy task is treated as shift-level evidence.
Productization · Not assessed
9. Failure detection, bounded retries, replan, safe stop, handback and restored-state evidence
AI, data, evaluation and HMI
- Accountable role
- Operations and control authority
- Acceptance question
- Who can intervene, with what latency and fallback when unavailable?
- Hold condition
- Recovery ownership, restored task state or the human intervention path is untested.
Launch · Not assessed
10. Applicable product/system/site scope, exact standards editions, hazard assessment and verification artifacts
Safety, cybersecurity, compliance and governance
- Accountable role
- Competent safety/conformity owners
- Acceptance question
- Who determines obligations and accepts residual risk for the complete installation?
- Hold condition
- Interface compliance or a supplier statement is substituted for system conformity and site assessment.
Launch · Not assessed
11. Broker/network boundaries, identities, access, update signing, vulnerability handling, incident response and recovery plan
Safety, cybersecurity, compliance and governance
- Accountable role
- OT cybersecurity and product owners
- Acceptance question
- Which supplier owns each control and what evidence covers loss of communications or compromised components?
- Hold condition
- The communication standard is treated as a cybersecurity assurance mechanism.
Launch · Not assessed
12. Permitted telemetry, camera data, retention, access, training reuse, location and exit arrangements
Safety, cybersecurity, compliance and governance
- Accountable role
- Data owner and legal/privacy specialists
- Acceptance question
- Is each use necessary, permitted and separable from optional supplier model training?
- Hold condition
- Rights are unknown, bundled without scope, or incompatible with site obligations.
Launch · Not assessed
13. Site readiness, installation, training, acceptance trials, defects, rollback and phased release plan
Deployment, operations, service and ecosystem
- Accountable role
- Named launch owner and integrator
- Acceptance question
- Who signs each acceptance decision and can stop or reverse rollout?
- Hold condition
- Payment or deployment milestones outrun unresolved acceptance evidence.
Scale · Not assessed
14. Shift-length availability by cause, intervention/recovery rates, person-minutes and longest continuous useful duty
Deployment, operations, service and ecosystem
- Accountable role
- Service and operations owners
- Acceptance question
- Are support capacity, response times, parts and escalation adequate for the intended fleet and sites?
- Hold condition
- Mean uptime hides excluded downtime or recovery work that scales beyond capacity.
Scale · Not assessed
15. Total ownership/operating cost and accepted useful moves for the same population and accounting window
Economics and business viability
- Accountable role
- Operations and finance owners
- Acceptance question
- Are failed and aborted attempts retained, and is the denominator observed and nonzero?
- Hold condition
- Cost per move uses theoretical throughput, missing costs or an incompatible observation window.
Scale · Not assessed
16. Version-support terms, site replication evidence, configuration control, supplier exit and retirement responsibilities
Deployment, operations, service and ecosystem
- Accountable role
- Product portfolio and procurement owners
- Acceptance question
- What reopens the decision after map, fleet, authority, software, site or commercial changes?
- Hold condition
- Support lifetime, revalidation, rollback, data disposition or supplier exit is unspecified.
Sources and their limits
- VDA 5050 version and archive
VDA · Source publication: date not supplied · Retrieved: 2026-09-06
The current-version page identifies VDA 5050 version 3.0.0, March 2026. An exact implementation version is needed when comparing suppliers.
- VDA 5050 version 3 specification
VDA · Source publication: 2026-03 · Retrieved: 2026-09-06
The interface specification excludes safety requirements, traffic-management logic, external-IT/peripheral interfaces, acceptance procedures, operating responsibilities and cybersecurity mechanisms. Interface support cannot establish complete system readiness.
- ISO Open Data: ISO 3691-4 deliverables metadata
ISO · Source publication: date not supplied · Retrieved: 2026-09-06
ISO's open dataset records ISO 3691-4:2023 edition 2, publication date 12 June 2023, current stage 90.92 (to be revised), and a draft successor at stage 40.20 with no publication date. Metadata alone does not establish applicability or conformity.
Contains information from ISO Open Data's iso_deliverables_metadata dataset, available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-By) v1.0. Only selected metadata fields are retained; no normative standard text is reproduced. ODC Attribution License (ODC-By) v1.0 The JSON download retains the selected metadata and dataset fingerprint.
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