The jury has made its decision: The cube storage pioneers Jakob Hatteland and Ingvar Hognaland will enter the Logistics Hall of Fame. The two Norwegians can claim to have reinvented and commercialized warehousing with the AutoStore system. The underlying principle of cube storage automation is one of the most important inventions in modern logistics and has established itself worldwide as the standard and model for highly efficient automated small parts warehouses.

In the 1980s, Jakob Hatteland built up Jakob Hatteland Electronics AS, the electronics parts wholesaler named after him, to become the most important player in Norway. In the 1990s, his technical director Ingvar Hognaland had the idea for the space-saving Cube Storage Automation, an automated storage system based on the cube principle, which later became famous under the product name AutoStore. In 1996, Hatteland and Hognaland founded AutoStore as a technology company in Nedre Vats. Hognaland's idea of using all the available space in a storage facility led to the central design element of AutoStore: the grid. The overall system consists of an aluminum grid, robots, bins, work stations and a controller. The robots move along the top of the grid on rails and remove bins from the shafts as required.

After introducing the first AutoStore robot for internal use in 2002, Hatteland recognized the global potential of the system and decided to commercialize AutoStore in 2004. Today, more than 1,250 AutoStore systems are in use in around 900 companies in 50 countries worldwide. The Cube Storage pioneers were officially inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame at a gala reception yesterday, November 29, at the Tipi am Kanzleramt in Berlin.

Axel Frey and Harry Seifert win Logistics Leader of the Year 2023 Award

The Logistics Leader of the Year Award was also presented during the reception. This year, the trophy goes to Axel Frey and Harry Seifert in Germany. Harry Seifert is Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Seifert Logistics Group. In over 40 years at the helm of the Swabian service provider, he has developed the company into one of the top 100 logistics service providers. Axel Frey, a member of the management board since 2019 and CEO since 2022, manages the operational business. Under the motto "Full speed ahead towards the future", both have implemented a strategic realignment of the family business in recent years that focuses on employees, digitalization and sustainable growth. The management duo has caused a stir with their "employees first" philosophy.

The Logistics Leader of the Year Award honors those who set the pace and shape the future of logistics. It honors entrepreneurs and managers from the transport and logistics sector who are currently working particularly successfully for their companies or who have set a trend-setting impulse. The award is presented by the Logistics Hall of Fame and sponsored by Still.