AutoStore founders Jakob Hatteland and Ingvar Hognaland will be inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame for “one of the most important inventions in modern logistics”.

A jury of 70 senior business, science, politics and media people from 13 countries selected the AutoStore founders as the newest inductees to the Hall of Fame.

Hatteland and 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 standardised 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 using a grid system with storage bins that could be retrieved with a robot and delivered to a waiting human at a workstation.

"The induction of the two Norwegians into the Logistics Hall of Fame is overdue,” Logistics Hall of Fame jury executive chair Anita Würsmer says.

“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.”

Hatteland began commercialising the system in 2004 and in 2019 the company was listed on the Oslo stock exchange in 2019 valued at more than USD1.5 billion.

AutoStore chief executive Mats Hovland Vikse, AutoStore says the honour is well-deserved.

 “Jakob and Ingvar are the epitome of inventors and pioneers,” Hovland Vikse says.

“They took a problem and made it into a groundbreaking solution that changes the way we think about using the finite space we have.

“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.

Hatteland and Hognaland will be officially inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame at a gala reception on the November 29, 2023, at the Tipi am Kanzleramt in Berlin.