Food Logistics Talks With Perry Ardito, MCFA General Manager of Warehouse Products

When it comes to RFID in the warehouse or DC, the technology's role isn't limited to tracking pallets, cases, or individual items. In some operations, RFID has another important function: guiding semi-automated vehicles around the facility.
By embedding RFID transponders in warehouse floors, engineers at Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift America Inc. (MCFA) in Houston have created systems that guide turret trucks and order pickers to specific racks and aisles with accuracy of one centimeter, says Perry Ardito, general manager of the Jungheinrich warehouse products group at MCFA. The transponders, which are placed in the warehouse floor at specific distances, communicate with an RFID reader/writer in the lift truck to identify warehouse aisle locations and distances.

When linked to a warehouse management system (WMS), the system can automatically pick up or put away products while following the most efficient path of travel. Further, these networks can boost warehouse safety by automatically slowing lift trucks down before they leave an aisle or by making the vehicle stop, flash its lights, or honk its horn at dangerous intersections in a racking system like cross-aisles and pedestrian aisles, Ardito says.

The system is currently installed at several customer sites in North America and is helping to guide more than a thousand lift trucks at DCs around the world, according to MCFA.