German equipment making giant Jungheinrich has acquired a stake in Navflex, a technology company which has developed AI and automated technology for the loading and unloading of trucks and warehouse pallet transport.

Navflex, founded in Germany in 2021, is a tech company which develops autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) they say think, drive and work like humans, with a focus on truck loading and unloading automation.

Now headquartered in Colorado, Navflex’s technology is deployed in North America and Europe.

According to Jungheinrich, it combines advanced perception, AI-driven decision-making, safety-first autonomy and a fleet which learns together to “operate in dynamic, unstructured environments without remote operators”.

Jungheinrich says the acquisition of a stake – the percentage and value of which have not been disclosed – strengthens the existing partnership between the two “with the goal of bringing an autonomous solution for one of the last non-automated core processes in intralogistics to market”.

Development is currently focused on the requirements of the European and North American markets.

“Loading and unloading trucks is a key bottleneck in the material flow for many of our customers,” says Dr Tobias Harzer, chief automation officer of Jungheinrich AG. “Together with Navflex, we are developing a solution that specifically addresses this process and reliably automates it. 

“In addition to robustness, compactness, and manoeuvrability at the loading dock, we place particular emphasis on safety – especially in environments where humans and machines operate side by side.”

The joint solution is based on an industrialised vehicle platform from Jungheinrich that is being consistently further developed for automated operation at the loading dock. 

The result is an autonomous mobile solution tailored to the requirements of variable dock environments, which can be integrated into existing logistics processes without additional infrastructure.

“We deliberately chose to tackle a problem that was long considered hardly automatable,” says Chuck Stovall, CEO of Navflex. “To enter the European market, we need a partner that can deliver industrial execution, scaling, and global service. This is exactly where Navflex and Jungheinrich complement each other. 

“In automation and AI, our partnership is truly 1 plus 1 equals 3.”