An independent German logistics prize group has named the six winners of its International Intralogistics and Forklift Truck of the Year (IFOY) prizes, awarded Friday in Vienna, Austria.
“The best of the best made it to the final and rarely before have the test teams and jury discussed so intensively and struggled to make the best choice. In addition to novelty value, customer benefit and practicability were ultimately the deciding factors in the final,” Anita Würmser, executive chairwoman of the IFOY jury, said in a release.
IFOY says nominees are not compared with each other, but with their competitors on the market. The group chooses awards winners through a three-step process, including an IFOY test protocol of around 80 criteria, the scientific IFOY Innovation Check, and the final selection of winners by an independent jury of international trade journalists. This year, that jury of 26 international journalists included this magazine’s own David Maloney, editorial director of DC Velocity and Supply Chain Xchange magazines.
The Munich-based group is sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, and supported by the Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association and the Robotics + Automation Association within the German manufacturing trade group VDMA. The application phase for next year’s IFOY AWARD starts on August 1.
PROFILES OF THE WINNERS
The winner in the “Warehouse Truck highlifter” category is the EJC 112i from Jungheinrich. The compact highlifter, which can be charged at any power socket, delivered an impressive performance in the IFOY audit, proving its position as the new benchmark in the entry-level segment for pedestrian stackers. The jury was particularly impressed by the intuitive operation, the small turning circle and the exceptionally high lifting and lowering speeds. The residual load capacity of 1,433 pounds at a height of 15 feet is the new benchmark in this class.
After an exciting finish in the “Special of the Year” category, RAVAS EUROPE wins with iCP Carriage Plate Scale with Weighing-in-Motion technology for calibrated weighing of the load during transportation. The basis for iCP is an existing weighing system. The intelligence lies in a smart box and the algorithms developed by RAVAS, which provide reliable measurements even on uneven ground. The decisive factor for the jury's vote was that Legal for Trade customers can bill on the basis of weight with the OIML-certified system.
The highly competitive “Mobile Robot” category was won by the series-based EXV iGo from STILL. The automated pallet truck for production supply and the pre-storage zone can be operated both manually and automatically. It offers a high residual load capacity of up to 3,500 pounds, can lift goods up to 12.5 feet and achieves a remarkable speed of up to 4.5 mph. The quick commissioning in combination with a new, intuitive user interface makes the series-based mobile robot a smart door opener into the world of automated warehouse processes, especially for SMEs, according to the jury.
In the “Stationary Robot” category, the SSI Piece Picking module from SSI SCHAEFER came out on top after a thrilling finish. The robot cell in container format for piece picking takes care of feeding, removal and safety technology. SSI SCHAEFER has found solutions for typical gripping errors, double picks or incorrect depositing. Centrifugal forces, which occur with articulated robots, are also a thing of the past; this is ensured by a miniature gantry robot with suction cups, which moves the gripper to any position on the source and target containers and handles even sensitive goods safely. The jury was particularly impressed by the short set up time of just one day.
SAFELOG won the IFOY AWARD 2024 in the top category “Integrated Customer Solution” for its AGV swarm in the Mercedes Factory 46. The jury selected the future vision of the Mercedes-Benz production system, which was developed and implemented in close cooperation between SAFELOG and the car manufacturer, as the best customer solution of the year. Mercedes-Benz is responsible for the software, while SAFELOG is responsible for the hardware, including around 350 AGVs, and the project implementation. The jury particularly emphasized the high customer benefit: this starts with the low price and the robust implementation, extends to the software ecosystem developed together with Mercedes and ends with an availability of 99.7 to 99.9%, which in practice means 40 hours less downtime.
A total of four young companies competed for victory at the IFOY Start-up of the Year Award. Intralogistics shooting star Brightpick won the race with the world's first autonomous, mobile picking robot Brightpick Autopicker. The AI-based 2-in-1 robot from the company, which was founded in Bratislava in 2021, picks while driving in the rack aisle without the robot having to return to a base station. It can also be used for other tasks such as pallet picking, warehouse replenishment, dynamic storage or normal goods-to-person picking. The jury particularly emphasized this versatility as well as the 50% reduction in picking costs.
Economic activity in the logistics industry expanded in August, though growth slowed slightly from July, according to the most recent Logistics Manager’s Index report (LMI), released this week.
The August LMI registered 56.4, down from July’s reading of 56.6 but consistent with readings over the past four months. The August reading represents nine straight months of growth across the logistics industry.
The LMI is a monthly gauge of economic activity across warehousing, transportation, and logistics markets. An LMI above 50 indicates expansion, and a reading below 50 indicates contraction.
Inventory levels saw a marked change in August, increasing more than six points compared to July and breaking a three-month streak of contraction. The LMI researchers said this suggests that after running inventories down, companies are now building them back up in anticipation of fourth-quarter demand. It also represents a return to more typical growth patterns following the accelerated demand for logistics services during the Covid-19 pandemic and the lows of the recent freight recession.
“This suggests a return to traditional patterns of seasonality that we have not seen since pre-COVID,” the researchers wrote in the monthly LMI report, published Tuesday, adding that the buildup is somewhat tempered by increases in warehousing capacity and transportation capacity.
The LMI report is based on a monthly survey of logistics managers from across the country. It tracks industry growth overall and across eight areas: inventory levels and costs; warehousing capacity, utilization, and prices; and transportation capacity, utilization, and prices. The report is released monthly by researchers from Arizona State University, Colorado State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, and the University of Nevada, Reno, in conjunction with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP).
With the economy slowing but still growing, and inflation down as the Federal Reserve prepares to lower interest rates, the United States appears to have dodged a recession, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF).
“The U.S. economy is clearly not in a recession nor is it likely to head into a recession in the home stretch of 2024,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said in a release. “Instead, it appears that the economy is on the cusp of nailing a long-awaited soft landing with a simultaneous cooling of growth and inflation.”
Despite an “eventful August” with initial reports of rising unemployment and a slowdown in manufacturing, more recent data has “calmed fears of a deteriorating U.S. economy,” Kleinhenz said. “Concerns are now focused on the direction of the labor market and the possibility of a job market slowdown, but a recession is far less likely.”
That analysis is based on data in the NRF’s Monthly Economic Review, which said annualized gross domestic product growth for the second quarter has been revised upward to 3% from the original report of 2.8%. And consumer spending, the largest component of GDP, was revised up to 2.9% growth for the quarter from 2.3%.
Compared to its recent high point of 9.1% in July of 2022, inflation is nearly back to normal. Year-over-year growth in the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index – the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation – was at 2.5% in July, unchanged from June and only half a percentage point above the Fed’s target of 2%.
The labor market “is not terribly weak” but “is showing signs of tottering,” Kleinhenz said. Only 114,000 jobs were added in July, lower than expected, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3% from 4.1% in June. Despite the increase, the unemployment rate is still within the normal range, Kleinhenz said.
“Now the guessing game begins on the magnitude and frequency of rate cuts and how far the federal funds rate will be reduced,” Kleinhenz said. “While lowering interest rates would be good news, it takes time for rate reductions to work their way through the various credit channels and the economy as a whole. Consequently, a reduction is not expected to provide an immediate uplift to the economy but would stabilize current conditions.”
Going forward, Kleinhenz said lower rates should benefit households under pressure from loans used to meet daily needs. Lower rates will also make it more affordable to borrow through mortgages, home improvement loans, car loans, and credit cards, encouraging spending and increasing demand for goods and services. Small businesses would also benefit, since lower intertest rates could lower their financing costs on existing loans or allow them to take out new loans to invest in equipment and plants or to hire more workers.
The global air cargo market’s hot summer of double-digit demand growth continued in August with average spot rates showing their largest year-on-year jump with a 24% increase, according to the latest weekly analysis by Xeneta.
Xeneta cited two reasons to explain the increase. First, Global average air cargo spot rates reached $2.68 per kg in August due to continuing supply and demand imbalance. That came as August's global cargo supply grew at its slowest ratio in 2024 to-date at 2% year-on-year, while global cargo demand continued its double-digit growth, rising +11%.
The second reason for higher rates was an ocean-to-air shift in freight volumes due to Red Sea disruptions and e-commerce demand.
Those factors could soon be amplified as e-commerce shows continued strong growth approaching the hotly anticipated winter peak season. E-commerce and low-value goods exports from China in the first seven months of 2024 increased 30% year-on-year, including shipments to Europe and the US rising 38% and 30% growth respectively, Xeneta said.
“Typically, air cargo market performance in August tends to follow the July trend. But another month of double-digit demand growth and the strongest rate growths of the year means there was definitely no summer slack season in 2024,” Niall van de Wouw, Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer, said in a release.
“Rates we saw bottoming out in late July started picking up again in mid-August. This is too short a period to call a season. This has been a busy summer, and now we’re at the threshold of Q4, it will be interesting to see what will happen and if all the anticipation of a red-hot peak season materializes,” van de Wouw said.
“Unrelenting labor shortages and wage inflation, accompanied by increasing consumer demand, are driving rapid market adoption of autonomous technologies in manufacturing, warehousing, and logistics,” Seegrid CEO and President Joe Pajer said in a release. “This is particularly true in the area of palletized material flows; areas that are addressed by Seegrid’s autonomous tow tractors and lift trucks. This segment of the market is just now ‘coming into its own,’ and Seegrid is a clear leader.”
According to Pajer, Seegrid’s strength in the sector is due to several new technologies it has released in the past six months. They include: Sliding Scale Autonomy, which provides both flexibility and predictability in autonomous navigation and manipulation; Enhanced Pallet and Payload Detection, which enables reliable recognition and manipulation of a broad range of payloads; and the planned launch of its CR1 autonomous lift truck model later this year.
Seegrid’s CR1 unit offers a 15-foot lift height, 4,000-pound load capacity, and a top speed of 5 mph. In comparison, its existing autonomous lift truck model, the RS1, supports six-foot lift height, 3,500 pound capacity, and the same top speed.
The “series D” investment round was funded by existing lead investors Giant Eagle Incorporated and G2 Venture Partners, as well as smaller investments from other existing shareholders.
The report cites data showing that there are approximately 1.7 million workers missing from the post-pandemic workforce and that 38% of small firms are unable to fill open positions. At the same time, the “skills gap” in the workforce is accelerating as automation and AI create significant shifts in how work is performed.
That information comes from the “2024 Labor Day Report” released by Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), the firm’s government relations and public policy arm.
“We continue to see a labor shortage and an urgent need to upskill the current workforce to adapt to the new world of work,” said Michael Lotito, Littler shareholder and co-chair of WPI. “As corporate executives and business leaders look to the future, they are focused on realizing the many benefits of AI to streamline operations and guide strategic decision-making, while cultivating a talent pipeline that can support this growth.”
But while the need is clear, solutions may be complicated by public policy changes such as the upcoming U.S. general election and the proliferation of employment-related legislation at the state and local levels amid Congressional gridlock.
“We are heading into a contentious election that has already proven to be unpredictable and is poised to create even more uncertainty for employers, no matter the outcome,” Shannon Meade, WPI’s executive director, said in a release. “At the same time, the growing patchwork of state and local requirements across the U.S. is exacerbating compliance challenges for companies. That, coupled with looming changes following several Supreme Court decisions that have the potential to upend rulemaking, gives C-suite executives much to contend with in planning their workforce-related strategies.”