The winners of the IFOY AWARD 2024 have been announced. Representatives of Brightpick, Jungheinrich, RAVAS EUROPE, SAFELOG with Mercedes, SSI Schäfer and STILL received the international intralogistics award from the laudators at the Award Night in the Congress Center Baden near Vienna. A laudatory speech was given by: Jan Droemer (Chairman of the Board, VDMA Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association), Alexander Klacska (Chairman of the Federal Transport and Traffic Division, Austrian Federal Economic Chamber), Wolfgang Scheibenpflug (Senior Vice President Real Estate and Landside Management, Vienna Airport), Susanne Kraus-Winkler (State Secretary for Tourism, Federal Ministry of Labour and Economy in Austria), Lars Otte (Member of the Management Board, Schnellecke Logistics) and Prof. Dr. Alice Kirchheim (Institute Director, Fraunhofer IML).
The International Intralogistics and Forklift Truck of the Year (IFOY) Award, which is under the patronage of Dr. Robert Habeck, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, is one of the largest technology competitions in intralogistics worldwide. Fifteen companies with sixteen products and solutions made it to the final in 2024. “The best of the best made it to the final and rarely before have the test teams and jury discussed the entries intensively and struggled to make the best choice. In addition to novelty value, customer benefit and practicability were ultimately the deciding factors in the final,” says Anita Würmser, Executive Chairwoman of the IFOY jury.
The winner in the “Warehouse Truck highlifter” category is the EJC 112i from Jungheinrich. The compact highlifter, which can be charged at any power socket, delivered an impressive performance in the IFOY audit, proving its position as the new benchmark in the entry-level segment for pedestrian stackers. The jury was particularly impressed by the intuitive operation, the small turning circle and the exceptionally high lifting and lowering speeds. The residual load capacity of 650 kilograms at a height of 4.7 m is the new benchmark in this class.
After an exciting finish in the “Special of the Year” category, RAVAS EUROPE wins with iCP Carriage Plate Scale with Weighing-in-Motion technology for calibrated weighing of the load during transportation. The basis for iCP is an existing weighing system. The intelligence lies in a smart box and the algorithms developed by RAVAS, which provide reliable measurements even on uneven ground. The decisive factor for the jury’s vote was that Legal for Trade customers can bill on the basis of weight with the OIML-certified system.
The highly competitive “Mobile Robot” category was won by the series-based EXV iGo from STILL. The automated pallet truck for production supply and the pre-storage zone can be operated both manually and automatically. It offers a high residual load capacity of up to 1600 kg, can lift goods up to 3.8 m and achieves a remarkable speed of up to 2 m/sec. The quick commissioning in combination with a new, intuitive user interface makes the series-based mobile robot a smart door opener into the world of automated warehouse processes, especially for SMEs, according to the jury.
In the “Stationary Robot” category, the SSI Piece Picking module from SSI SCHAEFER came out on top after a thrilling finish. The robot cell in container format for piece picking takes care of feeding, removal and safety technology. SSI SCHAEFER has found solutions for typical gripping errors, double picks or incorrect depositing. Centrifugal forces, which occur with articulated robots, are also a thing of the past; this is ensured by a miniature gantry robot with suction cups, which moves the gripper to any position on the source and target containers and handles even sensitive goods safely. The jury was particularly impressed by the short set up time of just one day.
SAFELOG won the IFOY AWARD 2024 in the top category “Integrated Customer Solution” for its AGV swarm in the Mercedes Factory 46. The jury selected the future vision of the Mercedes-Benz production system, which was developed and implemented in close cooperation between SAFELOG and the car manufacturer, as the best customer solution of the year. Mercedes-Benz is responsible for the software, while SAFELOG is responsible for the hardware, including around 350 AGVs, and the project implementation. The jury particularly emphasised the high customer benefit: this starts with the low price and the robust implementation, extends to the software ecosystem developed together with Mercedes and ends with an availability of 99.7 to 99.9 percent, which in practice means 40 hours less downtime.
A total of four young companies competed for victory at the IFOY Start-up of the Year Award. Intralogistics shooting star Brightpick won the race with the world’s first autonomous, mobile picking robot Brightpick Autopicker. The AI-based 2-in-1 robot from the company, which was founded in Bratislava in 2021, picks while driving in the rack aisle without the robot having to return to a base station. It can also be used for other tasks such as pallet picking, warehouse replenishment, dynamic storage or normal goods-to-person picking. The jury particularly emphasized this versatility as well as the 50% reduction in picking costs.
The IFOY AWARD honours the most innovative intralogistics products and solutions of the year. It has established itself as an indicator of efficiency and innovation and is regarded as an outstanding international innovation award in intralogistics due to its technical expertise. The decision is based on the three-stage audit – consisting of the IFOY test protocol comprising around 80 criteria, the scientific IFOY Innovation Check and the jury test. The decisive factor is that the nominees are not compared with each other, but with their competitors on the market. During the IFOY TEST DAYS on the occasion of the TEST CAMP INTRALOGISTICS in April in Dortmund, all nominees underwent the IFOY Audit.
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