5. FiT2clean Award: Outstanding innovations for future-oriented industrial part cleaning

FiT2clan Award 2026 – 1st Prize: The FiT2clean Award 2026, endowed with €10,000 and a one-year free membership, was awarded to SLCR Lasertechnik, represented by Sales Manager Steffen Neuhaus (center), for the development of a laser cleaning system for bulk materials. The award presentation was made by the Chairman of the Board Dr. Michael Flämmich (right) and Professor Dr. rer. nat. Katja Mannschreck (left). (Image source: Fachverband industrielle Teilereinigung e.V.)

FiT2clean Award Ceremony 2nd Place Sita: Wolfgang Schmitt (Application Technology, 2nd from left), André Lohse (Head of Application Technology, middle), and Managing Director Juliane Schulze (2nd from right) from Sita Messtechnik were pleased with the 2nd place. (Image source: Association of Industrial Parts Cleaning e.V.)

FiT2clean Award Ceremony 3rd Place Elma: With an innovative solution for measuring the cavitation noise level of ultrasound, Elma Schmidbauer secured third place. The award was received by Oliver Bothe (center), Senior Product Manager. (Image source: Fachverband industrielle Teilereinigung e.V.)

Innovations and developments in industrial cleaning technology make an important contribution to strengthening the competitiveness and value creation of manufacturing companies. This is demonstrated by all the submitted solutions with which companies applied for this year's "FiT2clean Award" innovation prize. The €10,000 prize awarded by the Association of Industrial Part Cleaning e.V. (FiT) was secured by SLCR Lasertechnik GmbH with the development of a system for laser cleaning of bulk materials. In second and third place were Sita Messtechnik GmbH and Elma Schmidbauer GmbH.

The industrial transformation also presents new challenges for manufacturing companies in the manufacturing step of component cleaning. "To meet these changing requirements, innovations and further developments along the entire process chain are necessary in industrial cleaning technology," explains Dr. Michael Flämmich, Chairman of the Board of FiT. The "FiT2clean Award" annually recognizes outstanding achievements and solutions for industrial component cleaning. "The consistently high innovation capacity and quality of this year's submissions made it difficult for the jury, composed of individuals from science, research, industry, and media, to select three finalists according to the defined criteria," reports the chairman. The Elma Schmidbauer GmbH, Sita Messtechnik GmbH, and SLCR Lasertechnik GmbH then presented their solutions on June 25, 2026, in Esslingen to participants of the 34th Conference on "Industrial Component Cleaning," who could also help decide the winner.

Laser cleaning for bulk materials

The development, which led SLCR Lasertechnik to win the €10,000 prize and a one-year free membership in the association, enables the use of laser cleaning as a preparation step for bulk materials such as screws, nuts, rivets, and clips before coating and galvanizing. With the new Lama system, all previously required preparation steps can be eliminated. In a closed system, up to 250 kg of bulk material are cleaned in a single pass using laser technology. Depending on the shape and size of the parts, processing times in the cabin vary between approximately 5 and 25 minutes. The clean process only requires suction. After processing, parts can be directly transferred to coating. It has also been shown that, compared to conventional methods, increased dwell times of the materials between cleaning and coating lead to fewer impairments of the surface quality of the coating.

Filmic residual contamination made visible and documentable across surfaces

Sita Messtechnik took second place with the FluoSpection Qube, a new development in the field of imaging fluorescence measurement technology for surface and spatially resolved control of film cleanliness. The goal was to transfer the detection sensitivity of point fluorescence measurements to surface measurements while making the distribution of film contamination visible, assessable, and documentable. The measurement system combines defined measurement conditions, ease of operation, automated evaluation, and comprehensive documentation. This results in a technically significantly improved, industry-ready, and affordable alternative to existing imaging approaches. The testing process is intentionally simple: insert the component, start measurement, display results, select relevant areas or predefined specifications, perform evaluation, and document. Precise positioning of the component is not required, as the software supports alignment, rotation, and assignment of the images.

Device for reliable measurement of cavitation noise level

With the development of the innovative measurement solution Elmasens Cavicheck for reliably capturing the cavitation noise level of ultrasound, Elma Schmidbauer secured third place. The device floats on the surface of the bath during testing, powers itself through energy harvesting from the acoustic power, and measures cavitation noise according to the IEC TS 63001 standard. After the measurement, the data remain encrypted in the device and are stored as a web URL along with the device's unique ID in the integrated NFC memory, accessible via an NFC-enabled smartphone as a neutral transmission channel to a secure web application. There, the measurement and the ultrasound bath are combined, supplemented with process parameters such as temperature, cleaner concentration, gas content, or water quality, and issued as a certificate. The new development thus enables data-based, reproducible, simple, efficient, and sustainable qualification of ultrasound baths.

Already thinking about the 6th FiT2clean Award

These and all other submitted innovations demonstrate that industrial cleaning technology has great potential to make manufacturing processes more efficient, stable, and resource-saving. "We are already convinced today that providers of industrial cleaning technology will surprise us in 2026 with exciting and forward-looking innovations that help strengthen the competitiveness of companies," notes Michael Flämmich. The FiT2clean Award will be presented next year at parts2clean, which will be held from October 5 to 7, 2027, at the Stuttgart Exhibition Center.