Jungheinrich have expanded their product range with a RFID-based solution. The Jungheinrich-developed system permits fast recording and monitoring of multiple-depth pallet transports, e.g. as used in the drinks industry.

Jungheinrich has developed its own RFID-based solution. The high point of this system: transponders are positioned in the pallets and aerials are integrated in the stacker’s forks. The transponders are read automatically on entering and exiting the pallets. “This guarantees fast and above all safe identification of all pallets”, says Dr. Markus Heinecker who is responsible for the warehouse management and new technologies business sectors at Jungheinrich. This newly developed solution is mainly used for recording and monitoring multi-depth pallet transports. “This is particularly interesting for applications in the drinks industry but also for other sectors”, Heinecker continues.

The EU standard 178/2002 applies to the drinks industry and according to this, every producer must guarantee the ability to retrace complete batches of his goods. This necessitates for example that the warehouse administration system must know the location of every pallet at any time. In drinks industry applications, barcodes on pallets were in the past frequently scanned manually and this also applies to multi-depth transports with fork lift trucks. “This process is often prone to errors. There is no certainty about stock levels. The challenge in our solution was to reduce this disadvantage with an automatic system”, Markus Heinecker recounts.

In the actual application, a forklift truck picks up and transports six plastic half pallets at the same time. The pallets carry drinks and are transported from Production to the warehouse and from the warehouse to Goods-out. One RFID tag (transponder) is fixed to the centre of each pallet base. Each transponder is given a clear number. The transponder is “married” to the goods in the warehouse administration system as soon as the pallet is loaded with articles. The truck driver recognises on his terminal that is connected via radio to the warehouse administration system whether he has picked up or deposited the right pallet and he is able to correct this if required. This total solution was put through the acid test by a customer from the drinks industry in spring 2008. “The test was very successful with almost 100 percent readout rate”, reports Markus Heinecker.

Jungheinrich gave special attention to developing a robust aerial solution. “This proved to be one of the greatest challenges in our project”, Heinecker continues. “On the one hand, we had to make sure that the aerials could not be damaged or even destroyed by pallets or falling loads and on the other hand, the screening effect of liquids would be inconsequential.”

In cooperation with the professorship “Materials Handling Technology, Material Flow, Logistics” (fml) of the Munich Technical University, Jungheinrich developed a solution that integrated the aerials in the stacker forks.”They are robustly and safely ‘packaged’ here”, Heinecker continues. Pallets are recognised automatically “in passing” (both during entry and exit). “The screening effect of liquids on the pallets has no influence on identification”, Heinecker adds. The developed solution is virtually indestructible compared with aerial solutions on the outer forks or on the mast.

Jungheinrich is among the leading international companies in the fork lift truck, warehousing and material flow technology sectors and offers its customers a comprehensive range of stackers, racking systems and services for complete internal logistics. The focal point of the Logistics Systems business field is tailor-made solutions, whether manual warehousing systems with a warehouse management system and radio data communication, fully automatic warehousing systems with rack servicing cranes and conveyor systems or a combination of both. Jungheinrich supports its customers from initial consultation via planning, projecting and system integration to service in day to day operation. The Jungheinrich share is traded at all German stock exchanges.