Allianz Industry 4.0 Award Baden-Wuerttemberg

• MHP is one of the 26 companies from Baden-Wuerttemberg to receive an award in the category “Winner”
• The award ceremony took place as part of the event “Startup The Future” organized by the Industry 4.0 Baden-Wuerttemberg Alliance at Look 21 in Stuttgart
• The jury of the Industry 4.0 Alliance – a  network initiated and supported by the Baden-Wuerttemberg Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labor and Tourism and VDMA e.V. Baden-Wuerttemberg – was impressed by the intralogistics project at Porsche

Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart – 27 Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) in Plant 2 and 3 at Porsche in Zuffenhausen carrying out up to 1,600 material transports per day – including loading runs – over a distance of 750 metres. The process is controlled and coordinated by the MHP FleetExecuter. The fleet management solution orchestrates various new and older assets, such as lifts, high-speed doors and existing systems. It also manages high racks, four automatic gates, a double lift system and four intersecting third-party systems en route between the various high-bay racks. The automation of intralogistics at Porsche impressed the nine-member jury of the Industry 4.0 Alliance and selected the project as one of the 26 best winning projects. Dr Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, Minister for Economic Affairs, Labour and Tourism in Baden-Wuerttemberg, presented the awards to the winners yesterday at the “Startup The Future” event of the Industry 4.0 Baden-Wuerttemberg Alliance at Look 21 in Stuttgart:

“The award-winning SMEs once again demonstrate what digital transformation can look like in practice. The 'Allianz Industry 4.0 Award Baden-Wuerttemberg' competition highlights hidden champions with holistic digitalization solutions. They are a source of inspiration and should motivate other companies to take further steps towards digitalization. Digitalization remains a decisive driver for greater competitiveness, especially for small and medium-sized companies.”

Outstanding individual Industry 4.0 solution

Of the applications submitted, three were selected in the “Excellence” category and 26 in the “Winner” category. Only “outstanding individual Industry 4.0 solutions” are awarded prizes. The market relevance and degree of innovation of the solution played an important role in the decision.

The MHP FleetExecuter combines both of these features, allowing AGVs from different manufacturers to be controlled as a whole, regardless of the communication interface, the data source and the degree of automation of individual systems. This was one of the decisive reasons for Porsche to opt for the manufacturer-independent cloud solution from MHP. This is the first time in the history of Porsche AG that the car manufacturer has opted for a central fleet management system.

Henning Hiebsch, Partner at MHP: “We are proud that our project at Porsche has been honored with the Industry 4.0 Award. A prize that we have earned together with Porsche, thanks to the excellent cooperation and our team from the new Industrial Cloud Solutions business unit.”

The automation of processes, particularly in intralogistics, is becoming increasingly relevant: On the one hand, the current situation of companies not being able to find suitable skilled workers and still being able to ensure process-critical production supply one hundred percent. On the other hand, companies are under high cost pressure – so speed and efficiency are becoming increasingly important in order to differentiate themselves from the competition. This is where the MHP FleetExecuter comes in: Efficiency in intralogistics can be increased by up to 20 percent, offering transparency and resilience on the store floor and thus providing the basis for improved processes. Costs can also be reduced – for example through process-optimized energy management. This results in a rapid return on investment. At the same time, software-controlled transport systems can save truck journeys and thus contribute to sustainability.

About the Industry 4.0 Alliance competition

As part of the “Startup The Future” event on October 23, Minister of Economic Affairs, Dr Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, honored three winners of the “Allianz Industry 4.0 Award Baden-Wuerttemberg” competition in the “Excellence” category. The winners were recognized for their high and consistent level of digitalization across the entire value chain and across divisions. A further 26 companies received an award in the “Winner” category. A total of 38 applications were submitted.

The Industry 4.0 Baden-Wuerttemberg Alliance is a network initiated and funded by the Baden-Wuerttemberg Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labor and Tourism. The coordination office is based at VDMA e.V. Baden-Wuerttemberg.