The prize has been presented in the course of the VDI Wissensforum on 29 March, during the 21. Deutscher Materialfluss-Kongress [21st German Material Flow Congress] in Munich. It is proof of the forward-planning innovation management in the company’s anniversary year, which is celebrated under the slogan »innovations for generations – 125 years of psb«.
In times, when the flow of information and goods is gaining more and more importance, in-house logistics has become a key success factor in global competition. The economic processing of small order sizes, within the most different time frames, is the most challenging task for many enterprises.
The prize-winning solution is a psb system with a high degree of economic efficiency, for a large variety of applications in the e-commerce business and returns management in the most different sectors, as fashion, automotive and electronics industry. The innovation consists of elements of the order picking stations rotapick 3.0 and the uninterrupted connection to the warehouse environment, which is operated by psb vario.sprinter shuttles. »A smart solution, I think…«, Professor Willibald A. Günthner pointed to the high degree of innovation of the psb concept in his award speech at the Technical University of Munich. By buffering the totes at the workstation, unnecessary repeated transports from the warehouse to the order picking station, and back, are avoided – an energy-saving process. During normal work load, or light load, not all conveyor elements need to be active; yet, permanent access to each tote box in the warehouse is provided.
Special emphasis is put on the ergonomic design of the rotapick workstations: both, source totes and target totes, are supplied in a position which is comfortable for the worker.
This configuration complies, to a very high extent, with the psb green efficiency approach. The vario.sprinter shuttle systems require only about a tenth of the power which is needed for the operation of a traditional AS/RS stacker crane system. The energy, developed during the deceleration (and braking action) of the vario.sprinter devices, is immediately re-generated into the supercapacitors of the shuttles.
»The entire psb team is proud of this award, which is proof for the fact, that only the know-how across generations, plus new ideas, can build the foundation for the future«, Werner Klein, Managing Director of psb GmbH, points out the meaning of the VDI Award for the employees in the company’s anniversary year.
Further information:
»Innovationspreis Logistik 2012« [Innovation Award Logistics 2012]
With this award, the VDI-Gesellschaft Produktion und Logistik (VDI-GPL) promotes developments in logistics with a high degree of reliability, availability and security. Sophisticated technologies, which support people in fulfilling their complex tasks, shall be presented to the public. Industrial, trade and service businesses, based in Germany, are entitled to participate in the competition.
The Jury
VDI-GPL has appointed an independent jury of competent and distinguished experts. Members of the jury 2012:
- Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Gregor Blauermel, Executive Partner B416 business consultants GmbH & Co. KG
- Prof. Dr.-lng. WiIlibald A. Günthner, Institute for Materials Handling, Material Flow, Logistics, Technical University of Munich
- Dipl.-lng. Rolf Karis, Vice Editor-in-Chief, »VDI-nachrichten« (professional publication)
- Volker Unruh, Editor-in-Chief, »Logistik für Unternehmen« (professional journal)
- Dr. Petra Seebauer, Editor-in-Chief, »Logistik Heute« (professional journal)
- Dipl.-lng. Reiner Wesselowski, Editor-in-Chief, »f+h Fördern und Heben« (professional journal)
- Mathias Thomas, Executive Partner gaxsys GmbH, Karlsruhe, winner of the »Innovationspreis Logistik 2011«
- Dipl.-Ing. Jean Haeffs, VDI-Gesellschaft Produktion und Logistik
The jury decides on the submitted documents according to the award criteria only; the award winners are determined in a direct vote.
Award ceremony during the 21. Deutscher Materialfluss-Kongress in Garching (Munich), from left to right: Prof. Dr.-lng. WiIlibald A. Günthner (Technical University of Munich), Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Volker Welsch and Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Werner Klein (both psb), Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Gregor Blauermel (B416 business consultants), Dipl.-Ing. Jean Haeffs, (VDI)