TRAPO GmbH convinced in the independent selection process of the TOP 100 competition

For the 28th time in a row, the prize was awarded for the most innovative companies of the German SME sector. TOP 100 is the largest and most important annual award in the German SME sector, given for particular innovative strength and above-average success.

“This internationally highly respected award is confirmation that we have taken a forward-looking path with our innovations and the implementation of Digital transformation,” says Volker Kugel, CEO of TRAPO GmbH. “My thanks go to the entire TRAPO team, which thinks and acts innovatively even in challenging times. Only in this way was it possible that we can now count ourselves among the exclusive ‘Club of Excellence’ of the Top 100 Innovators.” He added that the award was also a special incentive to continue TRAPO GmbH’s success. “In the future, as a top innovator, we will continue to offer order-related individual systems or complete line solutions for every industry, even before the market demands them.”

In the TOP 100 competition, scientists led by Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke and his team from the Chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration and Professor Dr. h.c. Reimund Neugebauer, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, examine the innovation management and innovation success of the participating medium-sized companies on the basis of over 100 parameters in five categories.

Focus on core industry that ensures supply

As a partner for automation, TRAPO GmbH initially concentrated on the acquisition and implementation of national projects when the Corona pandemic began. A particular focus was on the core industries that ensure supply, such as the food and pharmaceutical industries and medical technology. In 2020, new products, including autonomously operating systems in particular, were increasingly developed and launched on the market, further expanding TRAPO GmbH’s overall portfolio:

• Pick-and-place applications with parallel kinematics for layer-forming and packaging processes
• TRAPO Loading System (TLS) for autonomous loading and unloading of trucks and containers, as well as the TRAPO Loading Mover, which picks up the TLS to position it in front of loading bays
• High-performance sorter systems for order-related picking in distribution centers
• Depalletizers for cans and empty jars, which operates at ground level

TRAPO GmbH convinced in the independent selection process of the TOP 100 competition and won the competition with its forward-looking performance in the area of digitization: The TRAPO Digital Hub enables digital communication with customers and partners in all areas of the workflow. Each component and system can be given a digital twin – and thus become a digital image of the hardware. TRAPO-specific tools are bundled in the Hub to provide online support for commissioning, predictive maintenance and service issues. The TRAPO Digital Hub was developed and implemented in collaboration with teams of experts from RWTH Aachen University with the common goal of achieving significantly higher, more effective and safer processes in an automated environment with virtual processes.