Prestigious industry award for Wilo

Wilo’s Smart Factory in Dortmund received the “Factory of the Year 2022” award in the “Excellent Transformation: Digitalisation” category at a ceremony in the Allianz Arena in Munch recently. The occasion was part of a twoday conference where Germany’s best manufacturing companies shared their success stories.

“We’re proud of our pioneering flagship factory,” said Georg Weber, a member of the Executive Board and CTO of the Wilo Group. “With a high level of digitalisation and a consistent focus on Industry 4.0 standards, we are ideally equipped to meet the major challenges of the future.”

Dr Mahmud Al-Haj Mustafa, Senior Vice President of Group Operations at Wilo, added: “This award once again highlights that we’re the digital pioneer within our industry. A shortage of specialists, digitalisation, sustainability … the challenges facing manufacturing companies today and in the future are huge. Exchanging ideas with other drivers of innovation, as we recently did in Munich, is therefore particularly useful.”

A keynote speech was delivered by Branko Calusic, Vice President of Operations in Dortmund, who is responsible for the Smart Factory at Wilo’s headquarters. He demonstrated the role of digital technologies at the plant which was opened in 2019. For example, Wilo uses live dashboards that show the utilisation of individual production lines at any time. In addition, networked, driverless transport vehicles are used to automatically supply production workers with the right material at the right time.

“Digital transformation offers a wealth of new opportunities,” says Oliver Hermes, President & CEO of the Wilo Group. “I am therefore particularly pleased about this award. The fact that we, as a digital pioneer, were awarded in this category is proof of our ambition and our self-perception to develop future-proofed solutions for the challenges of our time.”

The “Factory of the Year” is one of the most prestigious and soughtafter industry awards in Europe. The competition has been in existence since 1992 and, over the years since then, approximately 2000 companies have taken part in the benchmark competition. This year was Wilo’s first time entering the competition.

Above: Representatives of the Wilo Group accepted the “Factory of the Year 2022” award in Munich. Picture includes Georg Weber (third from left), Member of the Executive Board and CTO; Dr Mahmud Al-Haj Mustafa (fourth from left), Senior Vice President of Group Operations; and Branko Calusic (with the trophy), Vice President of Operations in Dortmund.

With the award, the jury recognised, among other things, the digitalisation and sustainability of Wilo’s Smart Factory and also found that Wilo’s hydrogen strategy was “remarkable”.

“Wilo can become a global player in the creation, storage, distribution and utilisation of hydrogen,” concludes Oliver Hermes. “We already have numerous products and solutions in our portfolio that can be used in the first stage, ie, generation and storage. These include reverse-running pumps for driving hydropower generators, along with pumps for cooling circuits in wind turbines through to rotor drive actuators for these turbines.

“As hydrogen makes its way to the end-user, there are further wideranging possibilities for using Wilo’s products, solutions and services, including areas such as fuel cell technology.”