After overall win for 2024: Wilo co-host of “Factory of the Year” industry congress

Industry dialogue with exclusive insights into the Smart Factory

Dortmund. This year’s edition of the two-day “Factory of the Year” industry congress was held in Dortmund’s Westfalenhallen conference centre. The multinational water technology group Wilo played a special hosting role: Its Smart Factory at the Wilopark, the neighbouring headquarters of the Wilo Group, was named the 2024 overall winner of the renowned manufacturing competition. As part of this year’s congress, the 2025 winner was honoured.

“The Factory of the Year award has both validated us and spurred us on”, says Georg Weber, Global CTO of the Wilo Group. “It shows that we are consistently aligning our production with the benchmarks for efficiency, sustainability, and digital and AI excellence – and setting new standards worldwide along the way.”

The evening before the high-calibre event, Wilo welcomed former and current competition prize-winners to the exclusive “Champions Club” in the Networking Cube at Wilopark. “The Factory of the Year brings together the most innovative production sites in German-speaking countries. This dialogue between peers creates valuable momentum for the entire industry”, highlights Arne Schröder, Vice President Supply Chain Management.

To kick off the congress, participants had the opportunity to visit the Wilopark and discover its award-winning production on a factory tour. After a keynote speech by Georg Weber and Arne Schröder, guests experienced first-hand how digitalisation, automation and flexibilisation are implemented across the board – with a holistic approach that impressed the expert panel last year.

Since it was established in 1992, “Factory of the Year” has been considered one of the most important benchmark competitions in Europe’s manufacturing industry. As the overall winner for 2024, Wilo followed in the footsteps of Porsche (2023), Rational (2022), Siemens (2021) and Volkswagen (2020). Before the Wilo Smart Factory was picked as the overall winner, it had already received the “Factory of the Year” prize in the “Excellent transformation: digitalisation” category back in 2022.

In 2024, the Group also took home the Microsoft Intelligent Manufacturing Award (MIMA) in the “Add Value!” category for adaptive worker assistance at the Smart Factory.