Four companies have cleared the first hurdle for the Supply Chain Management Award: Bosch, Continental, Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services (LTLS), and Nokia will face jury and participants when it meets on November 26 during the EXCHAiNGE conference. Four other companies are competing for the Smart Solution Award: Magazino, Metrilus, parcelLab, and shipcloud. Those attending the event will also have the opportunity to cast their votes live on November 26. The Supply Chain Award will be formally presented during the EXCHAiNGE Award Night ceremony on November 27.

“The ideas that were submitted illustrate that supply chain skills are seen as mission-critical for adding value and achieving success,” remarks Harald Geimer, Partner at PwC Management Consulting. “Anyone who makes it to the final round has already made a big splash and scored a real success,” adds Dr. Petra Seebauer, Managing Director of EUROEXPO Messe- und Kongress-GmbH and an initiator of EXCHAiNGE.

About the awards

The Supply Chain Management Award will be presented for the 14^th year by Strategy&, the global strategy consulting team at PwC, and by the industry trade journal LOGISTIK HEUTE, a publication of HUSS-VERLAG in Munich. The prize honors outstanding SCM concepts that have been developed and implemented and can serve as a model for other companies. The aim is to optimize supply chains, lower costs, increase transparency, or improve collaboration between teams. The reigning winner from 2018 is CEMEX Deutschland AG

The Smart Solution Award will be presented for the second year, honoring particularly innovative concepts that are still in an early stage of implementation. The prize highlights solutions with the potential to fundamentally transform traditional value chains. The reigning winner from 2018 is InstaFreight GmbH.

The honorary sponsor is Steffen Bilger, Member of the German Bundestag and Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure.

Finalists of the Supply Chain Management Award 2019

Bosch: The Bosch Group’s submission focuses on the methodology of supply chain network design. Creating a digital twin of a complete supply chain network lets you forecast supply chain costs for the next seven years and evaluate long-term decisions. With the click of a mouse, you can analyze the impact of new customs regulations or changes in sales markets. Sustainably integrating this into the annual strategy process drives down supply chain costs significantly. The key to success is a cross-functional optimization of the supply chain network among purchasing, logistics, and production. The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services with some 410,000 associates worldwide (as of December 31, 2018). The Group generated sales of €78.5 billion in fiscal 2018. Operations are divided into four business sectors: Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology.

Continental: The Continental Automotive Group’s submission for the Supply Chain Management Award is the “Fast Forward 2030” supply chain vision. The objective is to develop a readiness for “Industry 4.0” automation, which brings greater agility and transparency to the complex supply chain of more than 100 production sites, 5,700 suppliers, and 157 billion product components. The first cost savings have already been realized at the two smart factory pilots in Regensburg and Zvolen. Continental develops pioneering technologies and services for sustainable and connected mobility of people and goods. Founded in 1871, the technology giant offers safe, efficient, smart, affordable solutions for vehicles, machines, transit, and transport. Continental generated sales of €44.4 billion in 2018 and currently employs more than 244,000 people in 60 countries and markets.

Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services: LTLS presents its Digital Warehouse solution, an essential building block of its digital strategy. Concepts to (partially) automate repetitive processes, develop mobile and paperless processes, and deploy “digital twin” systems yield streamlined processes and shorter manufacturing throughput times. LTLS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa Technik AG specializing in storage and transport services for airplane replacement parts and developing custom logistics solutions for the aerospace industry. The company maintains an independent global logistics network with some 30 subsidiaries and storage sites and partnerships with over 50 transport companies and other service providers. LTLS employs some 2,000 people and generated sales of €309 million in 2018.

Nokia: Finnish technology giant Nokia, headquartered in Espoo, has developed its “Future Eye” supply chain vision for 2025. Nokia’s submission describes forward-looking concepts around the conscious factory, conscious warehouse, and conscious distribution. Innovative technology and automation solutions—digital twin systems, virtual reality, robots, real-time tracking, and more—create transparency and efficiency across the entire supply chain. Increased automation in the production processes has already demonstrated the first positive effects on productivity and quality. An example is 4G and 5G wireless connectivity in the company’s production lines, enabling more than 30 percent gains in productivity, a 50 percent reduction in product delivery time to market, and annual cost savings in the millions of euros. Nokia’s submission also includes the “factory in a box” concept, a factory in a shipping container that can be used on board a ship during transport to efficiently reduce delivery times or ensure faster disaster recovery in production. Nokia has 103,000 employees and generated sales of €22.6 billion in the telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics sectors.

Finalists of the Smart Solution Award 2019

Magazino: Munich-based start-up Magazino presents a flexible robot solution for intralogistics. Following the successful deployment of TORU robots to pick shoe cartons, the SOTO model promises significant benefits in the area of material supply, including lower picking costs, support for non-ergonomic tasks, and lower line stock levels. The company was founded in 2014 and now has some 110 employees.

Metrilus: Erlangen-based Metrilus presents MetriXFreight, its automated freight measurement system. MetriXFreight obtains measurements using 3D depth camera technology, greatly outperforming conventional laser-based systems at a much lower price point. The innovative technology can measure objects of various shapes and sizes to capture reliable master data for inbound goods or optimize loads and provide accurate freight billing data for outbound goods. This provides an efficient solution for obtaining accurate base data—an increasingly important factor as the logistics industry digitizes and automates.

parcelLab: The submission for the Smart Solution Award is focused on improving the e-commerce customer experience during post-checkout. parcelLab offers real-time monitoring of each individual order for personal, individual, and emotional customer communications supported by machine learning. The white-label solution lets online retailers design their post-checkout customer relationships around their unique wishes and needs. Founded in 2015, the company has offices in Munich, London, and Paris and partnerships with more than 350 retailers in 38 countries.

shipcloud: shipcloud of Hamburg presents its cloud-based shipping platform, offering online retailers an easy interface to all key carriers—DHL, Deutsche Post, DPD, UPS, and many more. The automated generation and printing of shipping labels, multi-carrier tracking, and returns management are just the beginning. The platform also makes it possible to optimize transports through price queries and easily change carriers. shipcloud, founded in 2013, has established itself as a leading shipping service provider in Germany and throughout Europe.

The EXCHAiNGE supply chain summit takes place as part of the Hypermotion trade show (organized by Messe Frankfurt), which draws some 5,000 attendees. Those attending EXCHAiNGE also have the opportunity to visit the Hypermotion exhibit space with its multiformat focus on the digital transformation of transport and mobility: November 26–28, 2019.

Save the date:
7^th international EXCHAiNGE supply chain summit
with sessions, interactive supply chain roundtables, final round of awards competition, and Award Night ceremony
November 26–27, 2019 | at Hypermotion in Frankfurt am Main
Learn more: www.exchainge.de

About EXCHAiNGE
EXCHAiNGE is an annual international supply chain summit that brings together decision makers and thought leaders from the worlds of SCM, finance, logistics, and purchasing. Innovation officers, business developers, and supply chain operations managers from businesses of all sizes come to discuss the strategic issues facing managers today, including new approaches and business models and the challenges of integration amid digital transformation.

EXCHAiNGE provides a roadmap for navigating such key issues of digital transformation as sustainability, culture and mindsets, innovation, collaboration, mobility, technology, blockchain, big data, and artificial intelligence. Finalists competing for the Supply Chain Awards offer profound insights into pre-eminent examples of best practice.

Visitors get valuable tips on repositioning their businesses to become drivers of innovation with the goal of generating a critical competitive advantage. EXCHAiNGE stands as an established networking platform where attendees can share in the personal experience of industry leaders, experience illuminating roundtables on forward-looking strategies, be actively engaged, and reflect on new ideas and trends in the supply chain.

The supply chain summit is organized by EUROEXPO Messe- und Kongress-GmbH in Munich.

About HYPERMOTION
Hypermotion—Pioneering Mobility & Logistics | November 26–28, 2019 | Frankfurt am Main

Hypermotion offers a platform for forward-looking issues with a focus on smart systems and solutions for mobility, transport, logistics, and digital infrastructure and features an innovative program mix for the mobility and logistics industries. Taking place for the third time this year, the event brings together the users and providers who are defining new standards for the mobility of tomorrow. The overarching objective is to provide a networking platform that transcends various modes of transport and systems and finds interfaces between mobility and logistics. Hypermotion zeroes in on the following core questions: How will digitization and decarbonization transform transportation systems? How can we find unique, intermodal solutions for logistics and mobility chains in smart and digital regions?

The agenda blends seven interrelated topics: smart & digital regions, data analytics & security, digital & urban logistics, hypermodality (intermodal, multinational, digital), sustainability, monitoring & transparency, and connectivity. The event includes businesses of all sizes—from startups to large enterprises—together with researchers, policymakers, and representatives of professional associations. Hypermotion’s program mix of expo, conferences, pitches, workshops, and talks offers numerous opportunities to engage and network with seasoned experts from established enterprises and future innovators from the startup scene. The EXCHAiNGE conference is once again offered both as a part of Hypermotion 2019 and as a standalone event.