2nd place for «Sevensense»
In the end, it was "only" enough for second place – but an honorable nomination and narrowly missing the podium of the European Logistics Award for this year's winners of the Swiss Logistics Award, the robotics start-up "Sevensense". Reason enough for the Swiss team to celebrate in Paris.
All credit to the top-class projects that ultimately determined the ranking of the European Logistics Award winners. Among them was Sevensense Robotics' "Visual SLAM Localization and Navigation for Mobile Robots in Logistics" ("Eyes and Ears for the Robot Helpers"), which, following its win of the Swiss Logistics Award in June, was nominated by the jury of the European Logistics Association (ELA) as one of the six best projects and competed in the final phase of the prestigious ELA Award.
According to Gregory Hitz, CEO and co-founder of Sevensense Robotics, this could automate millions of forklifts (1.5 million are sold annually, according to the Industrial Truck Association) and other logistics vehicles – such as tractors and pallet trucks – without years of costly in-house development. "Our journey to reshape the logistics landscape with automated material handling robots has only just begun."
In the final round, the following projects competed for the trophy: a “warehouse optimization through automation” from the Austrian Raiffeisen cooperative RWA, a “control tower supply chain” from the Spanish car manufacturer Seat, a multimodal platform called Usyncro based on a blockchain for “digital logistics corridors”, Leroy Merlin (Grand Prix des Rois de la SC 2023) with “The Warehouse of the Future”,
a project by the Slovenian company Cargo X for the Egyptian customs single window Nafeza (“Optimization of international trade and customs clearance with blockchain technology”) and the Swiss company Sevensense, based in Zurich, with the Visual SLAM for mobile robots.
ELA Award Winner Cargo X
The final, hosted by France Supply Chain by ASLOG and attended by European executives from industry, retail and logistics as well as representatives of the ELA board, took place in mid-December at the Cité Internationale Universitaire and lasted over eight hours.
According to those involved, the result was close, "just missing first place," says Gregory Hitz. Ultimately, the single-window trading solution Nafeza, with its integration of the CargoX platform for blockchain document transfer, won the prestigious ELA Award.
Developed by MTS, Nafeza is the result of a targeted initiative to digitize Egyptian imports. The integration with the CargoX platform for Blockchain Document Transfer (BTD) has enabled companies to transfer documents and verify their identity in a completely neutral, decentralized, and highly secure environment. This has led to significant time and cost savings for importers, exporters, freight forwarders, and other stakeholders, while revenues increased by 13% in the first year alone.
Photos: ELA.
According to the jury, the system is streamlined and user-friendly and has already been adopted by 116,000 companies and organizations, who use it daily and have reportedly transferred more than 5.5 million documents via the platform. The success of Nafeza and the CargoX platform for BTD has also encouraged other countries to introduce similar systems. CargoX is already contributing its expertise to the upcoming customs systems of Uganda and Abu Dhabi.
"CargoX has provided a state-of-the-art solution to a problem that has been part of doing business for many years (or even centuries)," said ELA President Professor Markus Mau. Nafeza accelerates trade and logistics and creates a level of trust among business partners that was previously impossible.
CargoX was nominated for the 2023 ELA Award of the European Logistics Association, having won the Logistics Project Award of the Slovenian Logistics Association in October 2022.
Misr Technology Services (MTS), a provider of trade and transport logistics platforms, is a strategic public-private partnership (PPP) project of the Egyptian government. MTS has signed a 20-year contract to implement a national platform covering Egyptian airports, seaports, land ports, and free zones, adhering to international standards and best practices. The target platform is based on ICT solutions and system integration, providing a foundation for the unified delivery of electronic services, rapid automated processes, and services to the trading community.
Image: Cargo X.
The ELA Awards are presented by the European Logistics Association, which unites more than 20 national logistics associations and 55,000 logistics professionals. The associations' objectives include promoting the logistics and supply chain profession by strengthening professional skills, providing an international forum for networking, and fostering innovation and best practices in the European logistics and supply chain sector. Since 2014, the most innovative logistics projects have been recognized with the ELA Award. Previous winners include Nestlé-Pepsico, Skoda Auto AS, Bosch, and dm.
Download the winning project here
