TEST CAMP INTRALOGISTICS concludes successfully

Fifty-one innovations, 950 participants over six days, daily highlight tours and a top-class congress programme with panel discussions – the IFOY TEST DAYS and the TEST CAMP INTRALOGISTICS came to a successful end on Wednesday evening in Dortmund.

Fourteen products and solutions from 12 companies nominated for an International Intralogistics and Forklift Truck of the Year Award (IFOY AWARD) underwent six days of multi-level testing. Among them were new developments from Cargotec Engineering, Jungheinrich, Locus Robotics, Magment, NAiSE, Noyes Technologies, robominds, SICK, SSI SCHÄFER, STILL, stow robotics and SYNAOS.

These and numerous other companies took the opportunity to present their total of 51 innovations to potential customers at the TEST CAMP INTRALOGISTICS from March 21 to 23. The B2B visitors – most of them in management positions in logistics, industry and trade – travelled to the Ruhr metropolis for hands-on testing as well as intensive networking discussions without the hustle and bustle of the trade fair in the more than 10,000 square metre hall of IFOY partner Messe Dortmund. From forklift trucks and warehouse technology equipment to AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles), software, specials and robotic solutions, numerous devices and solutions were available in the test arena.

The talks revolved primarily around the topics of innovation and sustainability. The IFOY organisation also made sustainability a principle and took a number of measures to effectively conserve resources. The focus was on reusability and recycling, the use of regenerative energies and, above all, the fundamental renunciation of equipment that was not absolutely necessary. The declared aim was to launch a new, sustainable event format in logistics.

The congress programme celebrated its premiere this year with prominent panel discussions on the trend topics of innovation management, Intralogistics 4.0 and VDA 5050. The keynote on the opening day was given by the internationally renowned logistics researcher Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael ten Hompel (Fraunhofer IML) on the topic of “How innovations change logistics”.

From March 18 to 23, the nominees in the 10th round of the competition were critically analysed by an official tester, a team of researchers and the international IFOY jury. On Tuesday, representatives of the total of 12 manufacturers received the “Best in Intralogistics” certificates from the hands of Steffen Bersch, the new Chairman of the Board of the VDMA Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association.

The IFOY audit for the nominees again consisted of three parts again this year. First, all the trucks underwent the IFOY test conducted by Dutch intralogistics expert Theo Egberts. In this process, the finalists in each category are not compared with each other, but with the relevant equipment in the competition. The industrial trucks underwent standardised driving and functional tests, including the IFOY test protocol comprising more than 80 criteria, which takes into account factors such as sustainability, cost-effectiveness, safety and ergonomics of the nominees.

In the second part of the audit, researchers conducted the IFOY Innovation Check. Scientists from the Dortmund Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML), the Chair of Technical Logistics at the University of Dresden, the Chair of Materials Handling Material Flow Logistics at the Technical University of Munich and the Stuttgart Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA assessed the nominees in terms of market relevance, customer benefits, type of design and degree of innovation. The audit was concluded by the assessment of the 25 jurors and their approved advisors. The jury members – trade journalists from all continents, with the UK represented by Logistics Business News Editor Peter MacLeod –  were handed all the results of the IFOY test as well as the IFOY Innovation Check for the voting.

The TEST CAMP INTRALOGISTICS also included a revival of the AGV Mesh-Up initiated by the VDMA Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association and its member companies. Following the world premiere of the first live test of the VDA 5050 communication interface in the previous year, the 2022 test scenario was relaunched and once again gave B2B visitors the opportunity to observe the functions of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) for themselves and to exchange ideas with developers and scientists. This year, not only some new manufacturers participated in the AGV Mesh-Up, but also extended functionalities of the communication interface were presented. Participants in the AGV Mesh-Up were the companies DS AUTOMOTION, ek robotics, Fraunhofer IML, incubed IT, Omron Electronics, SAFELOG, Siemens and SYNAOS.

Neither the participants of the TEST CAMP INTRALOGISTICS nor the nominees will be told who has won an IFOY AWARD during the IFOY TEST DAYS. They will have to wait until the IFOY AWARD Night on June 30, 2022, which will take place this year in Munich.