The prestigious Logistics Award of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) goes to Schaeffler AG this year. At the Forum Automotive Logistics (FAL) in Wolfsburg, jury chair Prof. Dr. Julia Arlinghaus presented the coveted trophy to the company, which impressed the jury with its "Touchless Material Flow" (TMF) project. Among the finalists were also Porsche, Volkswagen Passenger Cars, and Volkswagen Group Logistics, with their joint concept "End-to-End Digital Logistics Process Planning within the Volkswagen Group." The VDA Logistics Award annually recognizes outstanding logistics solutions that serve as models for other companies in the automotive industry.

VDA Managing Director Dr. Marcus Bollig: "The automotive industry is under enormous pressure to transform. With 'Touchless Material Flow', Schaeffler delivers a compelling answer to this: The project impressively demonstrates how resilience, productivity and technological sovereignty in intralogistics can be systematically strengthened. It is a beacon for the innovative strength of the German automotive industry."

Winning concept: Schaeffler AG—Innovative automation solutions in intralogistics

With the award for the "Touchless Material Flow" project, the jury recognizes Schaeffler’s pioneering commitment to transforming entire intralogistics processes across various production sites through comprehensive automation and digitalization, thereby significantly increasing the productivity of the plants.

Schaeffler is a leading motion technology company that makes movement more efficient, intelligent, and sustainable with innovative technologies, products, and services – across the entire product lifecycle. With its strategic initiative, "Touchless Material Flow," the company aims to reduce manual intervention throughout its intralogistics processes and set a new standard in material flow optimization through automated and AI-supported solutions. Launched in 2021, the program has since been successfully implemented at several production sites worldwide. A key success factor of the initiative is its comprehensive portfolio of solutions, which includes autonomous vehicles, automated storage and transport systems, and, in the future, humanoid robots. All of this is networked within a digital ecosystem.

"We are delighted to have won the prestigious VDA Logistics Award, which confirms our vision of fully networked, autonomous intralogistics," says Thomas Kirchermeier, Head of Supply Chain Management & Logistics at Schaeffler AG. "Schaeffler is committed to consistently automating and digitizing its logistics processes. With the 'Touchless Material Flow' initiative, we are creating a scalable, digital backbone for our global production. Schaeffler is transforming material flow from purely physical movement to an intelligent, digital ecosystem. By using AI and, in the future, humanoid robots, we are setting new standards in productivity and preparing our plants for the digital future."

In addition, Schaeffler provides an overview of all company-approved automation solutions via an internal platform – including technical data, supplier information, and practical examples. This central database promotes the continuous expansion and further development of standard solutions worldwide. The establishment of a global "Touchless Material Flow" network is a key component of this success: it makes innovative solutions visible, promotes their implementation, and enables targeted knowledge transfer to other plants.

With the VDA Logistics Award, the jury recognizes Schaeffler's long-term commitment to further developing intralogistics through innovative automation solutions, thereby significantly strengthening its competitiveness in the global market.

“End-to-end digital logistics process planning in the Volkswagen Group” ranks second.

The second place in the VDA Logistics Award went to the joint application from Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Porsche and Volkswagen Group Logistics with the concept "End-to-end digital logistics process planning in the Volkswagen Group".

The submitted project comprises three interconnected digital components. The first element is a planning tool for inbound logistics that can be flexibly adapted to different application scenarios. It enables the simulation of logistical challenges and makes complex datasets usable for making informed decisions and continuously optimizing logistics chains. For in-house logistics, the Smart Twin was also developed as a further digital planning tool. An intelligent algorithm calculates the specific logistics costs for each component for all possible configurations. Based on this, and taking the available space into account, an overall optimum is determined, and potential savings are identified. To ensure the quality and dimensional accuracy of special load carriers throughout the entire logistics process, the mobile inspection and quality tool SuPAR (Surface Projection Augmented Reality) was introduced. SuPAR replaces the previously manual and time-consuming inspection process with a significantly faster, more precise, and digitized procedure.

Simon Motter, Chairman of the Logistics Committee at Volkswagen, congratulated the winner: "I congratulate this year’s winner, Schaeffler AG, and my thanks go to all applicants for the award. The submitted projects demonstrate the great innovative strength of our industry."