21 October 2016 - Following the successful first selection in 2014, the specialist journal LOGISTRA began the second round of the readers’ choice “LOGISTRA best practice: Innovations 2016” Award on 21 March 2016. This award recognised technical, entrepreneurial and intellectual innovations in intralogistics and the commercial truck industry. Out of a total of 24 products and solutions in eight categories, the editors nominated three candidates from each that stood out in the past few months as being particularly forward-looking, innovative and suitable for practical use. But the winners were chosen exclusively by the readers. In the Industrial Trucks category, they were impressed by the iGo neo CX 20 autonomous order picking solution from the Hamburg company STILL GmbH. The award handover ceremony took place during the STILL evening event in the context of the 33rd German Logistics Congress.

The Hamburg intralogistics specialists have scored a successful coup with the STILL iGo neo CX 20, and through interactive teamwork between man and machine they have significantly increased process safety and efficiency in order picking. The autonomous truck interacts with the operator like a team colleague. The truck follows him/her wherever they go during order-picking, always allowing the order-picker to go on ahead, while maintaining the separation distance from the shelf that has been specified to it. Since the intelligent order-picking truck takes over the driving and steering, the operator can concentrate fully on his/her work. This considerably increases order-picking performance and reduces picking errors. Safety is ensured by movement-tracking sensors that guarantee a distinction between the operator, other persons and obstacles. Obstacles are either driven around, or the machine stops if the route is completely blocked. If a slower truck is driving in front or there is a traffic jam, it adapts the speed to the situation. The iGo neo CX 20 catches up autonomously when the path is free again. It recognises empty shelf bays and passes them by. Crossroads are also crossed autonomously, but only after approval by the operator. The operator is free to decide whether he/she wants to use the iGo neo CX 20 manually or autonomously.

In the readers’ choice “LOGISTRA best practice: Innovations 2016”, the editors of the practice-oriented journal for commercial truck fleets and warehouse logistics put to the vote products and solutions in the categories Trucks and Fleet, Telematics and Navigation, Truck Equipment, Transport Safety, Industrial Trucks, Warehousing and Order-picking, Packing and Dispatch, and AutoID. This year more than 436 participants (there were 151 participants in 2014) selected the winners whose products and solutions are destined to open up new efficiency gains and potential savings for tomorrow’s logistics. The features that characterise all the winners are that they were perceived as being particularly innovative and cost-saving.