DHL rewards exceptional solutions with Innovation Award

• Deutsche Post DHL distinguishes most innovative customer, scientist and employee for the fifth time
• Award ceremony honours pioneering solutions and innovative spirit for future logistics

For the fifth time, Deutsche Post DHL honoured outstanding inventions with its annual DHL Innovation Award for scientists and entrepreneurs, customers and employees. Volvo was honoured for the most innovative customer solution, whereas Harald Lemke from Deutsche Post DHL’s MAIL division won the award in the category most innovative employee.

DHL also honoured members of the Ruhr University Bochum, the Technical University of Denmark and French company Orange Labs for jointly developing the crypto algorithm PRESENT. Yesterday’s award ceremony is part of the DHL Innovation Day, where experts from the worlds of science, industry and media discuss current logistics trends and topics around the use of ‘big data’ and cloud computing.

 “The drive for innovation and finding solutions for today’s problems is a key element to overcome obstacles and establishing future growth,” says DHL’s Chief Commercial Officer Bill Meahl. “As a global player we’re committed to finding innovative logistics solutions and are delighted to discuss trends and ideas together with our customers, employees and external partners.”

Volvo received the award as most innovative customer for a project called Maintenance on Demand (MoDe). It brought together 11 companies and institutions from all over Europe and focused on developing a commercially viable truck that identifies where and when maintenance is required. Thus, instead of today’s common ‘just-in-case’ set-up, just-in-time deliveries of spare parts are feasible. The implementation of MoDe benefits customers as they can decrease their logistics costs, reduce the risk of breakdowns and improve their CO2 efficiency.

Deutsche Post’s Harald Lemke was honoured as the most innovative employee. He pressed ahead with DocWallet, an app for mobile devices that ensures document security by fully encrypting files. The application was developed in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Research Institute for Applied and Integrated Security. The patented invention went live at the end of 2012. In the category most innovative scientist/entrepreneur, the team of Prof. Gregor Leander, Prof. Dr. Christof Paar and Dr. Axel Poschmann was awarded for developing the algorithm PRESENT, which is a secure and energy efficient cipher tailored for RFID tags. It is one of the best-analysed hardware-optimised cipher available and is considered to be absolute secure for at least two decades. PRESENT was accredited by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and will be implemented in the fields of logistics, medical engineering and vehicle manufacturing.

The annual DHL Innovation Day was initiated in 2008 to highlight how significant innovations are for Deutsche Post DHL and the overall logistics sector.