Flexible and award-winning

material flow: Welcome gentlemen, I am very pleased that the winners' round is once again complete this year. Mr. Brzoska, Jungheinrich has also received two IFOYs this year. Which one counts more?

Dr. Lars Brzoska:

"It will happen quickly, acceleration has hit the market." Dr. Lars Brzoska, Jungheinrich

I would like to quote Mr. Fischer (editor's note: Sales Director of Still GmbH) from last year, who said: It doesn't matter who wins, the main thing is that the trophies go to Hamburg. Both awards are on an equal footing, both are the result of a great team effort and are aimed at different segments. The two award-winning products primarily increase customer benefits. Jungheinrich does not do L'art pour l'art. We want our customers to be able to work more cost-efficiently and with greater process reliability. With both products, we have achieved a great success: We can offer a fully integrated solution for the loaders and with the Easy Pilot Follow we have developed a fantastic remote solution as a semi-automatic control system.

mfl: There are currently seven companies that have each won an IFOY Award and one - Jungheinrich - that has won nine awards. What makes the difference? Brzoska: As I said, we are committed to increasing the benefits for our customers with our innovations. We want to be at the forefront of this and, as you can see, we succeed time and time again. That makes us proud. We invest a lot in new developments and have a great team with an extraordinary willingness to innovate. This is how we create products with a great deal of commitment, which sometimes end up winning an IFOY.

mfl: Mr. Puhl, the RX20 won an award yesterday - is the trophy the cherry on the cake after a successful product launch?

Dr. Henry Puhl:

Cherry on the cake fits, a cake normally has 12 pieces and so the cherry is now indeed on a piece of cake. But we also have other pieces of cake, as you can see here at CeMAT. But of course the electric forklift truck is a key machine and the result of four years of development together with the customer. To see this honored with an IFOY is indeed the cherry on the cake. The cake itself is the feedback from customers and the way the market has accepted the machine.

"There is more that we companies need to offer and master." Dr. Henry Puhl, Still

mfl: So you are now running three shifts? Puhl: We produce at maximum output, four shifts, eight days a week and at least 25 hours a day (laughs). Seriously, we are very satisfied with the market launch. We are scoring points in two areas: Firstly, with the customer request for more ergonomics, higher handling capacity and more flexibility in energy management. This has been well received. Secondly, the machine is fully prepared for assistance systems and additional sensors can be easily integrated. This is the future.

mfl: Mr. Ulrich, Still has been developing the RX20 for four years, when did it start with the Wegard Trail? Stephan Ulrich: Six years ago, when we were working scientifically at the university on the issue of directional stability in tugger trains. We quickly came to the conclusion that there could be no mechanical solution for this, so we started to develop an electronic solution. The challenge was to find a simple solution. With just a few sensors, a servomotor and a steering algorithm, which contains the actual intelligence, we succeeded. We spun off Wegard two years ago with this patented idea. We are a small team and very proud of the award.

mfl: How small is the team?

Ulrich:

Wegard has five employees, some of whom work part-time. The links with the university are currently still strong. At LogiMAT, we were able to win our first customers for pilot projects, which will begin in the summer.

mfl: And then you dared to go to the IFOY? Ulrich: Yes, it was not without risk for us, as we naturally had to complete all the documents. We are very honored to be sitting in this round today among the established providers. Our original strategy was not to target end customers, but rather manufacturers such as Still or Jungheinrich. Now we are taking a two-pronged approach.

"Small companies can integrate customers more flexibly." Stephan Ulrich, Wegard

mfl: Witron has also won an IFOY for the first time. Witron has been active as a general contractor for decades. Am I going too far in interpreting the win as a victory for the "old school" over the new players in this segment? Helmut Prieschenk: No matter how you look at it: The worlds are growing together. When we talk about the integration of systems, it ultimately doesn't matter whether the system is a pair of data glasses, an industrial truck or a stacker crane. This year's IFOY is a very good illustration of this blending.

mfl: Mr. Sturm, your winning product is actually only used in a warehouse when it is being built or when something has gone hugely wrong afterwards - on the roof, for example. How do you perceive the world of intralogistics?

Storm:

Historically, we come from the field of overcoming obstacles or heights. But if you look at today's construction site environment, logistics play an increasingly important role. We have starting points and destinations, only the layout of the construction site that we approach - i.e. the storage locations - can change on a daily basis. It makes sense for us to enter the IFOY, as the flexibility of the product reflects this dynamic. Urban construction sites in particular are becoming increasingly crowded and need to be coordinated. The tower crane is currently the focal point of a construction site and the logistics are planned around it. Mobile cranes such as the MK140 offer new possibilities and flexibility here.

Prieschenk:

Flexibility was one of the key words at the award ceremony. Fifteen years ago, customers had specific priorities, such as ergonomics or cost-effectiveness. Today, you meet customers who are often unable to specify their problem precisely because their business model changes dynamically. Breathing solutions are in demand.

Storm:

We are getting involved in construction site planning earlier and earlier in order to achieve the most efficient solutions.

Prieschenk:

Today we are discussing more about what happens when the project needs to be expanded after completion than about the project itself. Where and how can you grow? This is still relatively simple on greenfield sites, but sometimes complex in existing warehouses.

mfl: Mr. Puhl, is flexibility the next buzzword? Puhl: I agree with the gentlemen. We are moving from selling devices to selling solutions. From our point of view, flexible and open solutions are important, but they also have to be smart. They also have to be easy to plan and install, that's what it's all about. You could also call it open solution spaces. Twenty years ago, they were selling off the peg, so to speak, but that's hardly the case today. Prieschenk: You shouldn't get lost in the thicket of buzzwords, because at the end of the day the customer wants to earn money with the solution. Flexibility is important, but in the end there must always be customer benefit.

mfl: Mr. Brzoska, how does a long project planning phase become plug & play? Brzoska: Let me first come back briefly to flexibility. This can of course be defined in different ways. For us, it primarily means future viability. Take our new reach truck, for example. It has a permanently installed lithium-ion battery, which means that the customer is no longer flexible in the traditional sense when it comes to choosing the battery. But that doesn't matter, because we believe that lithium-ion is the superior battery technology anyway. It was therefore more important for us to design a device that is also the best we can offer in terms of ergonomics, safety and functionality. Flexibility is also a question of the business model: offering the option of renting or leasing devices goes in this direction. As far as the question of project planning is concerned, you first need consistent business processes, which makes the processes easier. We rely on modularization. In the end, it all comes down to the employees, who have to implement the projects with a lot of know-how. Puhl: I agree with that, and there's another important point I'd like to add. In the world 4.0 that is opening up, it is wrong to say: "We can do everything, we'll do it like Daniel Gyro Gearloose". That would not cover costs and could not guarantee customer satisfaction. When we say we are flexible, it doesn't mean that we are talking about a first ascent every time. It also means that we combine tried and tested standards. It can't just be about inventing.

mfl: Are you happy, Mr. Ulrich, that your solution space is a little smaller compared to the big system issues? Ulrich: It doesn't seem that much smaller to me, as we also strive for standards so that our systems can be integrated into others. We don't just want to work with one manufacturer, we want to fit in with several. We don't see our technology as a one-off solution, but as a basis for integrating it into several systems, including AGVs, for example. Hardware complexity will decrease, but software complexity will increase. Industrial trucks will be more similar, but networked differently.

Company ranking

Since 213, the IFOY Awards have presented awards in a total of 26 categories at six award ceremonies. Jungheinrich is still the most successful company with nine trophies, ahead of its Hamburg-based competitor Still (7).

mfl: Is the willingness of customers to look at new technology generally high at the moment?

Ulrich:

Yes, absolutely. There are customers who cannot find suitable products for their problem on the market and who want to develop a solution together with the provider. This is where smaller

This gives companies the advantage of being able to integrate customers more flexibly into the development process.

mfl: Are the buzzwords of a trade fair currently overshadowing discussions with customers or are they able to differentiate? Prieschenk: Our customers are very good at dealing with them. The industry needs to handle buzzwords sensibly, because many of them are imprecise. Take the term artificial intelligence, for example: it is neither artificial nor intelligent. Yet almost everyone is using it across the country. Digitalization is also a nice word, but if I remember correctly, we were already using "digital" 20 years ago (smiles). It's important to walk a fine line; not every gimmick that you can do for the customer makes economic sense. You have to be able to recommend a solution to a warehouse operator for day-to-day operations without hesitation. As an industry, we have to manage this balancing act amidst the thicket of buzzwords. Brzoska: Our customers know exactly what they want to talk about. If we didn't have anything concrete, we could forget about topics such as digitalization. You have to fill these topics with life and that's what we do. As long as it is a problem for someone to introduce a CRM or ERP system and install an update, for example, they don't really need to talk about 4.0. No supplier at this trade fair will be presenting genuine end-to-end concepts from goods receipt to goods issue or even transportation. Nevertheless, the industry is on the right track.