Christian, Florin, Mehdi and six other colleagues are currently working 16 hours a day: Black Friday and Christmas mean high season for logistics service provider Fiege. In the morning, the nine of them even roll through the family company’s shoe store in Ibbenbüren all by themselves, scan orders, pick up boxes from the shelves and unload them at the transfer station for shipping. Returns bring them back to the place.
Despite their human names, the hardworking creatures are not made of flesh and blood: They are picking robots from the Toru brand. She created the Munich startup Magazino. Fiege, founded in 1873, around 20,000 employees and 150 locations worldwide, became a pilot user.
The head of the traditional family company, Jens Fiege, met the founder Frederik Brantner six years ago at a logistics congress. One was looking for a solution to the challenges of the booming online trade with its extreme fluctuations and high product diversity. The other needed a partner from business to develop the robot in a real environment until it was ready for the market.
Large companies want to play along
Toru can only do shoeboxes, but that is a very large work area at Fiege. The original three robots gradually became nine, which no longer scurry around in a demarcated test area, but move freely. You find the route yourself, work together with your human colleagues and, if necessary, get help from them. You learn not to block each other and not to stack big boxes on top of small ones.
Fiege is considering using it at other locations as well. The logistics service provider has also bought shares in Magazino. “It was important to us not only to observe developments from the sidelines, but to be on the field ourselves,” says Christoph Mangelmans, who heads the Omnichannel Retail business unit at Fiege.
Innovation labs, incubators, accelerators and investment companies are almost part of the good mold, especially among corporations. There are various forms of cooperation: joint research and development, better conditions through joint purchasing, references and new sales channels for the young company’s product through to participation or takeover.
Gap between desire and reality
Business plan competitions, matching platforms such as Ambivation, regional and industry events or the high-tech start-up fund (HTGF) bring potential partners together in a more or less targeted manner. “We regularly see very significant synergies. The important thing is: Cooperations only work in the long term if both sides benefit,” says HTGF Managing Director Alex von Frankenberg in the in-house online magazine DeepDive. The fact that start-ups in Germany relatively seldom address the end consumer also speak in favor of such partnerships. More than two thirds of sales are made with products and services for business customers.
Strategic investors who give them access to markets and industry expertise also want 43 percent of the young companies surveyed in this year’s German Start-up Monitor: In fact, only 15 percent use corporate venture capital, a combination of cooperation and investment. The gap between desire and reality has even widened somewhat due to the corona: “First of all, the events and the opportunities to get to know each other are missing,” says Niklas Vogt from the German Start-up Association. Second, many companies would have saved during the crisis and concentrated on their core business.
Chainsaws and drones for foresters
Nonetheless, there were plenty of interesting collaborations during the pandemic too. Example: Stiehl and Flynex. Stiehl is known worldwide for its very solid products: the chainsaw and other tools for forest and garden. Flynex, founded by three former Bundeswehr officers and a computer scientist, arranges commercial drone flights and helps organize registration with the authorities and analyze the data. What do chainsaws and drones have in common?
“Stihl classifies business models with geospatial data and their analyzes as relevant for the future,” answers Benjamin Junghans, director of the subsidiary Stihl Digital GmbH. Drones deliver high-resolution images from areas that are difficult to access, for example from the forest after a storm. That cuts inspection costs by up to 90 percent, says Flynex. Stihl participated in the start-up that he got to know through the HTGF.
Flynex founder with a drone
–
“We can also develop digital solutions completely in-house, but that would be more tedious and expensive because the know-how has to be built up first,” emphasizes Junghans. “Cooperation with start-ups is particularly valuable to us in the digital area, as they develop agile, iterative and customer-oriented and are masters of their solutions and their technology”. The start-ups showed the traditional companies where they could improve and for their part benefited from the high level of manufacturing expertise, the global network and the strong brand.
Errors and regression are a gain in knowledge
“The most important thing when working with start-ups is to develop a common understanding,” says Christoph Mangelmans from Fiege. Classic companies do not have such a pronounced “trial-and-error mindset” and sometimes quickly come to the conclusion that something is not working. Start-ups, on the other hand, usually see a gain in knowledge in mistakes and setbacks. “We have learned a tremendous amount there over the past few years.”
Ford was also keen to experiment in Cologne: the car company signed an agreement with the student company RheinSharing at the beginning of October. The start-up wants to feed charging stations for e-cars and e-bikes with Rhine hydropower. This is also possible without a dam: the electricity is generated by mini-turbines that rotate directly on the bank, practically under the charging stations.
Ford is willing to experiment: New charging stations could soon be installed in the Ford works in Cologne
–
The first turbines are likely to be launched at the Ford plant in Cologne-Niehl. The six founders, who are studying at the Technical University of Cologne, are in the process of measuring the flow velocity, calculating the costs and energy yields and adapting the technology.
The budding engineer Marcel Heilich cannot yet say when electricity will start flowing and how many vehicles can “fill up” there. The cooperation fits in with Ford’s plans to produce its European electric cars in Cologne-Niehl.
– .
