AWARDS

ifoy AwArds 2021 honour winners in six categories

Cargotec Ireland, the Dundalk based manufacturer of the MOFFETT truck-mounted forklift range, was among the six winners of the prestigious annual International Intralogistics & Forklift Truck of the Year.

The awards ceremony, which took place for the first time at the German Football Museum in Dortmund, honoured arculus, idealworks, Interroll Group, STILL, VOLUME Lagersysteme and Cargotec.

Deemed as the “Oscars of intralogistics” - the IFOY AWARD is the most important intralogistics awards programme in the world, as explained by the organisation’s Chairwoman Anita Würmser. “In 2021, fourteen international companies entered seventeen products and solutions in this the ninth round of the award.”

“The winners of the IFOY AWARDs 2021 have once again demonstrated that businesses can be innovative and forward-thinking even in persistent pandemic times and bring top products to the market that have a significant effect on the future of intralogistics,” she emphasised.

Cargotec Ireland won its first IFOY AWARD in the ‘Special Vehicle’ category with its second generation MOFFETT E4-25.3NX, the world’s first fully electric truck-mounted forklift. According to the jury, the emission-free and low-noise truck is unique in its class. It has three-wheel drive as well as numerous safety features and convinced the jury in the IFOY test on multiple levels, including its economic efficiency and high performance.

The winner in the ‘Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV)’ category was the BMW subsidiary idealworks with its autonomous mobile robot (AMR) the iw.hub. Originally developed for in-house use, the AMR is now freely available on the market and can be implemented very easily in just two days without any structural adjustments. It set an example at the IFOY TEST DAYS with its flexibility and other features, also scoring points with its competitive price.

In the ‘Special of the Year’ category, the Smart Pallet Mover (SPM) from the Swiss Interroll Group took the honours. This is a new, mobile robot solution for the automation of pallet transport in the areas of production machines and order picking. It convinced testers and the jury not only with its high degree of innovation, but also with an outstanding cost-benefit advantage.

Arculus won the ‘Intralogistics Software’ category. The independent manufacturer of a fleet management system called arculus Fleet impressed the jury, as it enables the operation of AGVs from different manufacturers in one area via a VDA5050 interface. It also opens up new possibilities for the mixed operation of automated warehouse vehicles, which were unthinkable in practice until not long ago.

In the ‘Integrated Warehouse Solutions’ category, this year’s award went to STILL. The Hamburg based intralogistics company made it to the top step with its Danfoss project. For Danfoss Power Electronics’ new production warehouse, STILL had implemented a perfectly coordinated solution consisting of three automated series industrial trucks, the smart iGo insights tool and the ELOshield safety system for its Danish customer. According to the jury, the project is an impressive example of how automated warehouses will be controlled, monitored and analysed in the future.

No less than five emerging companies qualified for the final round in the ‘Start-up of the Year’ category this year, each offering different innovative solutions. In the end, Volume WAVE from VOLUME Lagersysteme got most votes. The world’s first fully automated pallet shuttle warehouse with individual access to each storage location convinced the jury with its fundamentally new design principle as well as its professional implementation. The scientists and engineers on the adjudication panel described the extremely space-saving solution in the IFOY Innovation Check as ‘impressive’.

The International Intralogistics & Forklift Truck of the Year (IFOY) AWARD recognises the best intralogistics products and solutions of the year. It has established itself as an indicator of cost effectiveness and innovation and is regarded as the leading innovation award in intralogistics due to its technical expertise. The basis for the decision is the three-stage audit - consisting of the IFOY test protocol with around 80 criteria, the scientific IFOY Innovation Check and the jury test. The most important detail is that the nominees are not compared with each other, but with their competitors’ products on the market.

At the IFOY TEST DAYS held in March at the Messe Dortmund exhibition centre, all nominees went through the IFOY test series. For the second year in a row, around 100 potential buyers were also on site at the TEST CAMP Intralogistics. The winners of the IFOY AWARDs are chosen annually by an international jury of trade journalists, from countries all over the world, including Ireland, represented by Fleet Transport/Handling Network magazine.

The IFOY Award is sponsored by the Association for Materials Handling and Intralogistics within the VDMA. IFOY partners are Messe Dortmund and the world’s leading forklift attachment manufacturer Cascade. The IFOY AWARD’s pallet partner is CHEP, the global market leader in the pooling of pallets and containers. The logistics real estate partner is GARBE, the trailer partner is Kögel and the logistics partner is LTG.

Text: Jarlath Sweeney – editor@fleet.ie

The application phase for the IFOY AWARD 2022 is now underway – log on to www.ifoy.org for more details.

IFOY AWARD: All winners 2021 at a glance:

n MOFFETT E4-25.3NX, Cargotec Ireland n iw.hub, idealworks n Smart Pallet Mover (SPM), Interroll Group n arculus Fleet, arculus n Danfoss Project, STILL n Volume WAVE, VOLUME Storage Systems