The Automation Award jury reviews all proposals and applications for the Automation Award annually after the application deadline. The composition with members from science and research, associations and the editorial staff ensures that the submitted solution offers and digitalization scenarios are viewed from different perspectives and thus evaluated as neutrally as possible.

Result of the jury's assessment are three nominations – for each of the two categories

• TECHNOLOGY (Solution Offers) and
• DIGITALIZATION (Digitalization Scenarios).

Then the readers of elektro AUTOMATION and wirautomatisierer.de can vote and choose their favourites in both categories.

By the way: In 2019, following a suggestion by jury member Prof. Dr.-Ing. Oliver Riedel from the University of Stuttgart, the 'Special Prize for Digitalization' was awarded for the first time by the jury itself. The aim was to award a prize to a practical application that demonstrates how the advantages of digitalization can be used efficiently.

The Special Prize for Digitalization has become one of the two fixed categories of the Automation Award in 2020, the category 'DIGITALIZATION' (Digitalization Scenarios). The objective is unchanged.

The second category 'TECHNOLOGY' (Solution Offers) further summarizes components and system solutions of electrical automation technology without which digitalization could not be implemented.