Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

INBOUND

Toyota Material Handling Europe hosts logistics design contest

Challenge seeks solutions that minimize waste and use resources with little impact on the environment.

Toyota Material Handling Europe (TMHE) is looking for ideas on how to improve the “circular economy”—the reduction of material use by recycling—through logistics. To find the very best ideas, TMHE is again hosting the Toyota Logistic Design Competition, open to undergraduate and graduate students in university programs worldwide.

Specifically, this year’s participants are challenged to develop solutions for the future that improve lives, minimize waste, and use resources in a way that has little impact on the environment. 


This is the third year the Europe-based competition is welcoming contestants from the United States. Two U.S. students received top awards in 2022: an entry from the University of Houston for a highly maneuverable delivery cart for dense urban environments, and one from California State University for a modular drone fleet for warehouses and “micro hubs” that could streamline the process of handling and organizing goods.

Toyota has pledged a cash prize of 5,500 euros ($6,000) to the winners in each of three categories: 

  • Vehicle/transportation and industrial/product design: New ideas and designs for means of transport and products that promote circularity and sustainability in the logistics and mobility area.
  • User interface, user experience design, and service design: New ideas for apps, digital services, and Internet of Things solutions that promote circularity and sustainability in the logistics and mobility area.
  • Business innovation design: New ideas for revenue streams, business cases, and completely new business proposals that promote circularity and sustainability in the mobility and logistics area.
The deadline for submitting entries is December 18. Complete details can be found at https://tldc.toyota-forklifts.eu/.

The Latest

More Stories

aerial photo of warehouses

Prologis names company president Letter to become new CEO

Logistics real estate developer Prologis today named a new chief executive, saying the company’s current president, Dan Letter, will succeed CEO and co-founder Hamid Moghadam when he steps down in about a year.

After retiring on January 1, 2026, Moghadam will continue as San Francisco-based Prologis’ executive chairman, providing strategic guidance. According to the company, Moghadam co-founded Prologis’ predecessor, AMB Property Corporation, in 1983. Under his leadership, the company grew from a startup to a global leader, with a successful IPO in 1997 and its merger with ProLogis in 2011.

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

AI sensors on manufacturing machine

AI firm Augury banks $75 million in fresh VC

The New York-based industrial artificial intelligence (AI) provider Augury has raised $75 million for its process optimization tools for manufacturers, in a deal that values the company at more than $1 billion, the firm said today.

According to Augury, its goal is deliver a new generation of AI solutions that provide the accuracy and reliability manufacturers need to make AI a trusted partner in every phase of the manufacturing process.

Keep ReadingShow less
AMR robots in a warehouse

Indian AMR firm Anscer expands to U.S. with new VC funding

The Indian warehouse robotics provider Anscer has landed new funding and is expanding into the U.S. with a new regional headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Bangalore-based Anscer had recently announced new financial backing from early-stage focused venture capital firm InfoEdge Ventures.

Keep ReadingShow less
Report: 65% of consumers made holiday returns this year

Report: 65% of consumers made holiday returns this year

Supply chains continue to deal with a growing volume of returns following the holiday peak season, and 2024 was no exception. Recent survey data from product information management technology company Akeneo showed that 65% of shoppers made holiday returns this year, with most reporting that their experience played a large role in their reason for doing so.

The survey—which included information from more than 1,000 U.S. consumers gathered in January—provides insight into the main reasons consumers return products, generational differences in return and online shopping behaviors, and the steadily growing influence that sustainability has on consumers.

Keep ReadingShow less

Automation delivers results for high-end designer

When you get the chance to automate your distribution center, take it.

That's exactly what leaders at interior design house Thibaut Design did when they relocated operations from two New Jersey distribution centers (DCs) into a single facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2019. Moving to an "empty shell of a building," as Thibaut's Michael Fechter describes it, was the perfect time to switch from a manual picking system to an automated one—in this case, one that would be driven by voice-directed technology.

Keep ReadingShow less