The Logistics Hall of Fame, the independent not for profit logistics organisation, has announced that AutoStore founders Jakob Hatteland and Ingvar Hognaland will be inducted as members. Those inducted are honoured for their outstanding efforts to further development of logistics and supply chain management.
The Logistics Hall of Fame points to Jakob Hatteland and Ingvar Hognaland as having reinvented and commercialised warehousing with the AutoStore system. According to the organisation, Hatteland and Hognaland have been selected for developing one of the most important inventions in modern logistics that is now a worldwide standard for efficient warehouses.
A jury of 70 well-known figures from business, science, politics, and the media representing 13 countries were responsible for selecting the AutoStore founders as the newest inductees to the Hall of Fame.
Anita Würsmer, Executive Chairwoman of the Logistics Hall of Fame jury explained the decision: “The induction of the two Norwegians into the Logistics Hall of Fame is overdue. Hognaland invented the automated cube warehouse and developed it into a perfect system that today has more than 1,600 patents.
“Hatteland will go down in logistics history because, on the one hand, he courageously believed in the success of the system for years and built up a network of selected international distributors who made AutoStore a global bestseller.”
Jakob Hatteland and Ingvar Hognaland founded AutoStore in 1996 in the small Norwegian fjord town of Vats after developing an idea to overcome warehouse space constraints. Hognaland came up with the concept of a standardized, automated, cube-based storage and retrieval system to reduce what his company was storing most of – air. Inspired by the Rubik’s Cube, he developed a prototype that utilized a grid system with storage bins that could be retrieved with a robot and delivered to a waiting human at a workstation. The AutoStore system was born.
Having seen the potential of the AutoStore system to revolutionize the storage and logistics business, Hatteland set about commercializing it in 2004. Through a lean partner-based go-to-market model, AutoStore began to make a mark on the logistics industry with customers recognizing its enormous potential to boost space, time, and cost efficiency in their operations.
Today that mark is truly global with over 1,250 AutoStore systems installed for over 900 unique customers across 50 countries. This success meant that when listed on the Oslo stock exchange in 2019, AutoStore was valued at more than US$1.5 billion and became Norway’s first unicorn.
Mats Hovland Vikse, AutoStore CEO, reflected on the importance of such an honour for the AutoStore founders: “Jakob and Ingvar are the epitome of inventors and pioneers. They took a problem and made it into a ground-breaking solution that changes the way we think about using the finite space we have.
“They represent a true founder’s mentality that continues to inspire and drive us as a company. While today we are a global company with over 900 employees working with the world’s biggest brands, we are still deeply connected to our roots and the problem-solving mentality inspired by Jakob and Ingvar.
“I am incredibly proud to hear that they have been honoured with an induction into the Hall of Fame. It serves as inspiration for all of us at AutoStore.”
Hatteland and Hognaland will be officially inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame at a gala reception on the 29th of November at the Tipi am Kanzleramt in Berlin.
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