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10.05.2017

STILL sweeps the board at the IFOY Award

STILL in the first division again at the IFOY 2017 Award presentation

The race for the coveted trophy is decided. In 2017, STILL is again among the winners of the International Forklift Truck of the Year (IFOY) Award honouring the best industrial trucks and system solutions. The award ceremony took place yesterday evening in the surroundings of the BMW World in Munich on the opening day of transport logistics – the leading trade fair for logistics, mobility, IT and Supply Chain Management. In the “Warehouse Truck” category, the Hamburg intralogistics specialist won over the jury with the STILL iGo neo CX 20 autonomous horizontal order picker. Another Award was also won by the STILL LiftRunner, a tugger train solution with telescopic fork pairs for automatic loading and unloading.

Thomas A. Fischer, STILL´s CSO, had the pleasure to receive two IFOY Awards this year.

The IFOY Award was presented this year for the fifth successive time to the “Best of Intralogistics”, and documents the performance and innovative strength of industrial truck manufacturers and system providers. The nominated trucks and applications had previously been required to complete an eight-day competitive comparison on the arena of the Munich Trade Fair, an IFOY partner, where they were subjected to stringent tests. Thirty international jurors chosen from the media, science, industry and logistics were asked to cast their votes.

This involved confronting the finalists with the IFOY test protocol comprising 80 criteria, and the evaluations of the IFOY Innovation Check. The latter took place under overall control by the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML) in Dortmund, and the Chair of Machine Elements and Technical Logistics at the Helmut-Schmidt University in Hamburg. In particular, the innovative value of the equipments, their market relevance, and specifically their customer benefits, were carefully scrutinised. In the functional practical test, on the other hand, hard facts were recorded, analysed, compared and contrasted by the Dutch specialist journalist Theo Egberts. 

STILL secured a decisive competitive lead in the “Warehouse Truck” category with the iGo neo CX 20 autonomous order picker. Encomium speaker Dr. Jochen Köckler, Member of teh Board of Deutsche Messe, said: “The iGo neo CX 20 delivered a spectacular performance at the IFOY testing days and convinced the tester, the IFOY adviser and finally the jury as well. The crucial factor was the high innovation value in combination with a phenomenal customer value as well as the professional implementation – A milestone in the intralogistics.”

This, the world’s first autonomous horizontal order picker, has no difficulty finding its way around any warehouse topology, while following its operator wherever he or she goes. In particular, the jury rated its market relevance and customer benefits as high. The machine is operational immediately, without elaborate preliminary adjustments, and can be integrated flexibly into existing infrastructures. The testers stated that the enhanced customer benefit manifests itself through its laser-assisted environment recognition, intuitively usable communications interface and autonomous driving. A 360o field of vision enables the STILL iGo neo CX 20 to respond to changes in its surroundings at any time, while being able to distinguish between static and dynamic objects and persons. Due to its cognitive abilities, the truck recognises the operator’s intentions based on his or her movements and automatically moves in parallel with him/her from station to station. At the same time, the truck always takes up a loading position that is optimum for the user. Another manifestation of integrated intelligence is the front-mounted laser scanner’s 180° panoramic recognition. This enables the machine to display anticipatory driving behaviour based on its order picker’s movement speed, and to display early recognition of any obstacles and avoid them. The jury was also especially impressed by the potential savings achievable with the iGo neo CX 20 compared to conventional order pickers. In the test runs, the truck was said to have shown that it acted more efficiently and productively in all the layouts as soon as the “tag-along” principle was used. The outcome was that “The test team achieved a gain of up to 47 per cent.” At the same time, the iGo neo CX 20 releases the employee from fatiguing movement patterns, e.g. constantly climbing on and off. He or she has both hands free, and can focus on his/her productive work without restriction. The jury’s conclusion: “With the iGo neo, STILL shows that innovations in robotics technology make a valuable contribution to intelligent intralogistics. Notable pluses include its high performance, ease of operation and numerous perspectives.” This was also emphasized by Köckler during the awards ceremony.

The second IFOY Award was presented to STILL in the “Special Vehicle” category. Here the jury was convinced by the STILL LiftRunner, a heavy load towing train system consisting of a towing truck, a partly automated C-frame (trailer) and trolleys (load carriers on wheels). The aim of this development was to allow even oversized load carriers weighing up to two tons and measuring around 1,200 x 2,400 mm to be integrated without any difficulty into a towing train based production supply system. The process of loading and unloading is controllable via a touch-sensitive display. Fisheye cameras mounted above the trailer ensure a maximum level of safety. The examiners named the laterally extendable telescopic forks and remote operation via touchscreen as key innovative elements. The jury also paid tribute to the fact that this automated towing train variant physically unburdens employees, because it completely eliminates the conventional manual shifting of heavy loads. This was also said to be relevant in view of the demographic development that is leading to a steady increase in the average age of the workforce. There is no need for the driver to leave the towing truck during the loading and unloading processes, which are assisted by a laser positioning aid. The live image projected onto the truck terminal allows him/her to respond immediately to unforeseen events, e.g. unplanned crossing of the route by pedestrians. If several trailers are being used simultaneously, each individual trailer is displayed in split-screen mode. In the examiners’ overall estimation, the STILL LiftRunner has a clear lead over the solutions offered by other suppliers. Compared to the loads of up to about 500 kg per trailer that were possible in the past, experience in the test runs shows that even very large, heavy components up to 2,500 kg or up to six metres in length can now be handled on a relatively small area. Summing up, the encomium speaker Birgit Heitzer, Director Corporate Logistics at Rewe Group, says: “Decisive for the decision was finally the outstanding value of the truck and the fact that the winner develops a new market segment in times of a demographic change.”