Uhlmann Pac-Systeme wins FREDDIE – The Industrial AI Award 2026
Uhlmann Pac-Systeme has won the FREDDIE – The Industrial AI Award 2026 – in the "NextGen Industrial AI" category with its AI-based assistance system SmartAssist. The award was presented on September 16 in Munich. Bastian Brinkmann, Stefan Traub, Mario Rometsch and Serhat Toykan accepted the award. (Foto: Marc-Andre Hergenröder, Vogt GmbH)
SmartAssist wins in the "NextGen Industrial AI" category
The FREDDIE is awarded by publish-industry and UnternehmerTUM for the most innovative AI applications in the manufacturing industry with a measurable impact. An independent jury of experts selected the winners from more than 70 submissions. Among other things, economic benefits, technical implementation, scalability, user-friendliness, degree of innovation, sustainability and relevance for the manufacturing industry were evaluated.
"We are very proud of the FREDDIE. After the Allianz Industry 4.0 Award 2025 and the VOICE Best Data Project Award 2025, it is the third award for our AI application SmartAssist and thus great proof of a real SME innovation," says Dr. Mario Rometsch, Head of Analytics & AI at Uhlmann Pac-Systeme.
SmartAssist secures empirical knowledge and accelerates machine setup
When setting up customer-specific packaging machines, up to 500 parameters must be precisely coordinated. SmartAssist supports employees with historical machine and project data. The browser-based application uses this to calculate parameter suggestions and can transfer them directly to the machine. Today, more than 70 percent of the final parameterization can already be calculated before the machine is sent to final assembly. This can significantly reduce the processing time in final assembly. At the same time, automated data transmission reduces the risk of errors in manual entries and makes the process more robust.
AI with concrete added value in everyday industrial life
SmartAssist systematically records valuable empirical knowledge, prepares it in a structured way and makes it available to the assembly teams. The application learns with each additional data set. In this way, the solution combines technical data knowledge with practical experience and supports employees exactly where the knowledge is needed in everyday shop floor life. Uhlmann SmartAssist digitizes empirical knowledge and transfers it directly to the machine. In this way, know-how is secured during ongoing operation.
