At the end of IFOY TEST DAYS 2021 from March 22 to 26 at the Dortmund Exhibition Centre, the award organisation again presented the "Best in Intralogistics" certificates of the year 2021. Representatives of a total of 14 companies got the certificates in Hall 4. Representatives from arculus, Cargotec Engineering, HAI ROBOTICS, Hänel, H+E Produktentwicklung, HHLA Sky, the BMW subsidiary idealworks, Interroll Group, NIMMSTA, OPPIDUM TIC, STILL, SYNAOS, VOLUME Lagersysteme and WAKU Robotics were delighted to receive the seal. This year, the certificates were presented by Gordon Riske, Chairman of the Board of the VDMA Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association.

The "Best in Intralogistics" seal was introduced three years ago to document visibly to the outside world the high degree of innovation of the products and solutions nominated for an IFOY AWARD that successfully absolve the IFOY test. "Only innovations with this certificate have successfully passed the three-part IFOY audit and have therefore made it to the independent intralogistics test," emphasises Executive Jury Chairwoman Anita Würmser.

The IFOY Audit 2021, which was conducted for the first time this year on the premises of the new IFOY partner Messe Dortmund, lasts a total of five days. It includes various test series, whose results support the total of 26 jury members - renowned logistics trade journalists from all over the world - in their decision on the winners. In the IFOY Award, the nominees in a category are never compared with each other, but always with currently comparable products and solutions on the market. This ensures that the performance values and the innovation gap can be assessed objectively.

The first part of the IFOY audit is the scientific IFOY Innovation Check, which is carried out by the Dortmund Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML), the Chair of Technical Logistics at the University of Dresden and the Chair of Materials Handling Material Flow Logistics at the Technical University of Munich. The experts give assessments of the finalists in terms of market relevance, customer benefits, type of execution, and degree of innovation. In addition, the scientists verify the innovations stated by the manufacturers in the test hall and evaluate in a technology comparison whether they are innovative further developments, new compositions or genuine innovations.

The second part of the IFOY audit is the practice-oriented IFOY test by Dutch trade journalist Theo Egberts. He measures the hard facts and compares them with the relevant competitor machines. The appliances undergo individually tailored driving or functional tests, including the IFOY test protocol, which comprises around 80 criteria and determines, among other things, the appliances' economy and energy efficiency, sustainability, safety and ergonomics. To avoid falsification of the test results by external influences such as lighting, weather conditions or aisle widths, the test hall creates identical environmental conditions for all candidates.

The third part of the audit is the assessment of the finalists by the jury members and their accredited consultants. The jury members form an opinion based on the IFOY Innovation Check, the IFOY test results and their own test experiences, and then vote.

Who will win the race in 2021 will remain a well-kept secret for a few more weeks - even for the manufacturers. It will only be revealed during the festive IFOY AWARD ceremony, whose location and time will be announced shortly.

Members of the jury 2021: Snejina Badjeva, editor-in-chief Logistika magazine (Bulgaria), Winfried Bauer, editor-in-chief f+h Fördertechnik (Germany), Cecilia Biondi, editor-in-chief Logistica Management (Italy), Charleen Clarke, editor-in-chief Focus on Transport and Logistics (South Africa), Theo Egberts, IFOY tester and owner of Buro Andersom / Andersom Testing (Netherlands, without voting rights), Reji John, editor The STAT Trade Times & The Indian Transport and Logistics News & Logistics Update Africa (India), Klaus Koch, editor-in-chief LogisticsInnovation.org, Handel Heute (Switzerland), Allan Leibowitz, editor-in-chief forkliftaction.com (Australia), Valeria Lima de Azevedo Nammur, editor-in-chief LogWeb Magazine (Brazil), Øyvind Ludt, editor-in-chief Moderne Transport (Norway), Bernd Maienschein, editor-in-chief MM Logistik (Germany), Marilena Matei, editorial director Tranzit / Tranzit Logistica (Romania), Anton Mizunov, editor-in-chief Skladskoj complex (Russia), Maurizio Peruzzi, editor-in-chief Il Giornale della Logistica (Italy), Matthias Pieringer, editor-in-chief Logistik Heute (Germany), Szilvia Rapi Jaubert, publisher and editor-in-chief Supply Chain Monitor (Hungary), Matthias Rathmann, editor-in-chief trans aktuell (Germany), Isabel Rodrigo, editor-in-chief Logística Profesional (Spain), Hans-Joachim Schlobach, publisher and editor-in-chief Business+Logistic (Austria), Sascha Schmel, managing director association materials handling and intralogistics in the VDMA (Germany, without voting rights), Sebastian Śliwieński, editor-in-chief Warehouse Monitor (Poland), Jarlath Sweeney, editor-in-chief Fleet transport (Ireland), Mats Udikas, representative Transportnytt (Sweden), Ying Xu, editor-in-chief MM Logistics in China (China). The executive chairperson of the jury is Anita Wuermser, logistics journalist and managing partner of impact media projects.

Read the press release on ifoy.org.