Greenfield Logistik

What is greenfield logistics?

The term greenfield originates from real estate and investment language, literally referring to undeveloped land. In intralogistics, it describes projects in which a new facility is built on an undeveloped or fully cleared site – without any consideration for existing building structures, live systems, or established processes. The counterpart is the brownfield project, where planning and conversion take place within an existing environment.

The key advantage of a greenfield approach lies in its design freedom: layout, conveyor technology, storage systems, warehouse management software, and IT architecture can all be consistently aligned with the target process, rather than compromising with legacy constraints. At the same time, this freedom entails significant planning responsibility – assumptions regarding throughput volumes, growth, and SKU structure must be carefully modeled, because errors have no legacy baseline to act as a corrective and will directly impact investment volume and future operating costs.

How does a greenfield project work in practice?

A greenfield project typically begins with a site selection and dimensioning phase. This involves developing forecasts for throughput, inventory, and growth, and translating them into a space and area program. In parallel, an automation concept is developed that compares different scenarios – manual, semi-automated, fully automated – and evaluates their respective business cases.

During the tendering and contract award phase, general contractor and systems integrator models are discussed. Key questions include who assumes overall responsibility for construction, technology, and IT integration, and how interfaces between trades are contractually secured. Vendor-specific topics such as maintenance contracts, spare parts supply, and scaling options should already be evaluated at this stage, as they shape operating costs across the entire service life of the facility.

The commissioning phase encompasses factory acceptance tests (FAT) and site acceptance tests (SAT), a parallel operation or phased ramp-up, and the handover to regular operations. Particularly in highly automated greenfield facilities, the ramp-up is a risk area in its own right and should be factored into the schedule and budget at an early stage.

What matters when selecting and planning a greenfield project?

Three factors frequently determine project success:

• Volume framework and scalability: The facility must not only accommodate opening-day operations, but also enable growth stages without requiring a complete rebuild. Reserve space, modular system architecture, and scalable IT are central to this.
• System architecture and integration capability: Which systems – WMS, WCS, ERP – communicate via which interfaces? Open API standards reduce dependencies on individual vendors.
• Construction and commissioning risks: Lead times for automation components, permitting processes, and skilled labor availability can significantly affect greenfield timelines.

Whether a greenfield approach is preferable to brownfield depends on the individual case – in particular on available capital investment, the urgency of the requirement, and the feasibility of maintaining live operations during a brownfield transformation.