If you've ever been involved with a theatrical production, you well know that the actors don't make it work all by themselves. Sure, a lot hinges on delivering the right lines at the right times. But if they miss their mark and stand in the wrong place, the impact is certainly diminished. The same is true if the lighting is poor or the audio flawed. And if there's a scene change that takes too long, the audience gets restless. In other words, it's the sum of the parts that determines if the production is a success.

The same holds true for a materials handling system of any complexity. The individual pieces of equipment can't be successful unless the physical and information interfaces that drive and control their interactions are in synch. But given hyper-charged supply chain demands, even that may not be enough now.

As is explained in the Equipment Report - Information-driven!: 'It will no longer be enough to have controls and software in place to direct the automated materials handling equipment and move inventory through a facility. Just as important will be the ability to collect and manage in real-time the information about the location and status of each unit of inventory at all times.'

There's even a new term to describe this higher level of materials handling and information management: information-driven materials handling systems.

Now this is a good news/bad news story. The good news is that the critical components of these systems - warehouse management systems, materials handling control systems and programmable logic controllers/PC-based controls - are not new. The bad news is that the degree of integration needed between them is on a new level altogether, and, as a result, is both costly and difficult.

Nevertheless, information-driven systems are very much on the minds of automated materials handling suppliers. In fact, it's been a topic of discussion both in the U.S. and Europe. And all agree - the devil is in the interfaces.

At the CeMat show in Germany (see - The latest from Europe), people like Steve Jones of FKI Logistex, Pete Metros of Siemens Dematic and Juhani Anttila of Swisslog all talked about it. Interfaces were also a topic of discussion at the Spring meeting of Material Handling Industry of America in Charlotte. There, Tony Morse and Bradford Beale of Comtrol broke new ground when they addressed interface issues at a meeting of the Integrated Systems and Controls product section. It was immediately apparent that there are no easy answers.

Clearly, we're early in development. But the potential is enormous. Get everything working in synch at a higher level, and you've got a smash hit, baby.