“They’ll keep doing that until the equipment fails,” says Scott Craver, product manager of business and information solutions for The Raymond Corporation. “That customer is now looking at a blown $700 motor and a much lengthier downtime.”

Reading between the aisles
The assortment of sensors on a lift truck is good for tracking what lift trucks do best, which is pick things up and put them down. But the data they collect also paint a picture of processes and pinch points throughout a facility.

“By far, the biggest trend we see is creating business intelligence using the lift truck almost as a sensor in the warehouse,” says Lew Manci, director of product development for Crown Equipment. “It has to do with the fact that the WMS can see what happens at each bar code scan, but it can’t see what happens between them.The lift truck now has the capability to collect that information and provide it to management.”

Managers can now identify high traffic points and look at how the facility layout might change to make traffic run more smoothly. And while impact monitors will tell a manager when a collision has occurred, says Craver, a deeper look into the data might reveal that the operator is not entirely to blame for each impact. Damage could also be caused by variances in the dock level or cracks in the floor that can ruin wheels and tires, resulting in big costs.

According to Craver, one customer used this technology to detect that a particular operator tended to have a lot of impacts around 10 a.m. every morning. Someone else had been unloading trucks and putting some heavy materials in the operator’s way. While navigating the containers, he would often collide with them. “We adjusted the facility layout, creating a path that improved that operator’s speed and productivity while eliminating that damage,” says Craver. “Some managers might just write him up. Others will look into the data for a huge return on investment.”

Beyond picking things up and putting them down
Even the most rudimentary modern lift trucks come with standard diagnostic ports and microprocessors. “The difference between lift trucks of today versus 10 years ago is that they have a brain,” says Bill Pfleger, president of Yale Distribution for Yale Materials Handling Corporation.

But while the electronics embedded throughout the lift truck are great for sending data out, they also allow commands to be sent in. The operator’s controls no longer rely solely on levers and hydraulics, but pass through the central brain of the lift truck. This allows a variety of technologies to directly control various functions of the equipment.

For instance, when integrated with the facility’s WMS, an onboard computer can direct an operator to a pick location. Once the operator reaches the location, whether 100 inches or 400 inches high, he or she can simply press a button on the computer screen to send the forks up at the fastest possible speed before they stop precisely in front of the pallet opening.

Similarly, the lift truck’s onboard intelligence can control the process of lowering the mast. By monitoring the forces applied during descent, it’s possible to more than double the speed of lowering. “In tall or narrow aisle racking, lowering can account for 25 percent of the overall lift truck cycle,” says Manci. “By doubling the speed, customers can see a 12 percent or 13 percent improvement in productivity.”

The microprocessors in a lift truck can also enable anti-slip technology that monitors wheel spin and improves traction in applications with slick floors, such as cold storage. The same onboard electronics make it possible to configure a pallet jack to accept voice commands, says Dawley.

By integrating with an existing voice picking solution or operating as a standalone module, this voice technology can allow a picker to advance the lift truck while a few steps away in a pick location. Married with some guidance technology borrowed from automated guided vehicles (AGVs), the lift truck can even sense and avoid obstacles as it moves alongside a more productive picker.

Tailoring the lift truck
Instead of shaping an application around the limitations of an off-the-shelf lift truck, technology enables a lift truck to be highly customized to the application. One example is narrow aisle applications, where traditional wire guidance or rail guidance are enough to keep the lift truck safely away from racking. But radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is capable of communicating a variety of information to the lift truck that can alter its performance, according to Chad Munger, product line manager, warehouse products, for Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift America.

For instance, an RFID transponder embedded in the floor of a facility can ensure a lift truck will only lift to a certain height near low-hanging air handling units or conveyors. It can control deceleration at the end of an aisle, or bring the lift truck to a complete stop.