July, 2021

idealworks wins the International Intralogistics and Forklift Truck of the Year (IFOY) AWARD 2021 in the category “Automated Guided Vehicle” with its autonomous mobile robot, iw.hub. The award ceremony took place on Monday, July 5, at the German Soccer Museum in Dortmund.

Just eight months after the launch of the BMW spinoff in November 2020, the CE-certified autonomous mobile robot iw.hub yesterday won the IFOY AWARD as AGV of the year. An independent jury of internationally renowned trade journalists and industry experts from the world’s leading logistics media attested flexibility, performance, and innovation to the logistics robot. The AMR had already been awarded the Best in Intralogistics seal in spring after successfully passing the IFOY audit.

According to the IFOY Innovation Check as part of the IFOY Test Days, an elaborate, multi-stage test procedure carried out by jurors from all over the world, the iw.hub was based on an innovative control concept with a high degree of flexibility: “The performance of the device is impressive, especially when it comes to speed and picking up poorly-positioned loads. In addition to the practically oriented IFOY test, the result serves as decision guidance for the jury.

“With the iw.hub, idealworks offers a unique logistics innovation meeting with a great response and demand both within the BMW Group and among customers worldwide. The fact alone that our spinoff idealworks was able to win such a prestigious award with its product just a few months after its founding validates our ability to innovate as well as our process expertise,” emphasizes Milan Nedeljkovic, Member of the Board of Management for Production at BMW AG, who has accompanied the startup’s journey from the very beginning.

Michael Schneider, CEO of idealworks, explains what the award means for the wholly owned subsidiary of the BMW Group: “We are very pleased to receive this year’s IFOY AWARD as best AGV. The highly innovative characteristics, performance, and flexibility are part of our idealworks DNA. To be on par with the best of the best and to have wrapped up this award is not only a great honor for us, but also reaffirms how important and right the path we are taking is; with an autonomous mobile robot that creates real added value for companies worldwide, changing the logistics industry for good.”

The IFOY AWARD is under the patronage of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Since 2013, the prize has been one of the most important international awards for intralogistics products. In addition to the high degree of innovation, the impressive performance, robustness, and reliability of the iw.hub during the IFOY test series were decisive for the jury’s decision: “A particularly flexible solution that can be implemented in just a couple of days and is also attractively priced, proving a factory-in-one-day feasible,” infers Anita Würmser, Chairwoman of the IFOY AWARD jury.

The tried-and-tested logistics robot, iw.hub, was specifically developed within the BMW Group and is not only in productive use in vast numbers at the BMW plants, but since fall last year also outside the parent company at well-known companies in various industries. The renowned IFOY AWARD once again confirms the importance of the iw.hub as an autonomous mobile robot for both present and future intralogistics.

Contact:
Sarah Kuehn
Digital Marketing & Communications Manager
Email: sarah.kuehn@idealworks.com