Forklift automation is one of the most promising new technologies on the horizon. That doesn’t mean that automation technology when applied to forklifts inherently makes them safe to operate.

Tomorrow, June 10, the Industrial Truck Association will celebrate National Forklift Safety Day. The following column on lift truck safety by Lew Manci, vice president of engineering, Crown Equipment, is part of Modern’s Other Voices column. The series features ideas, opinions and insights from end users, analysts, systems integraters and OEMs. Click on the link to learn about submitting a column for consideration.

Forklift automation is becoming one of the most interesting and promising new technologies on the horizon. The technology is evolving quickly to make automated forklifts more practical for use in warehouse and distribution environments. However, it can be a misconception that automation technology when applied to forklifts inherently makes them safe to operate. Rather, it is important to remember any vehicle or technology can be unsafe when used improperly and not supported by the proper safety training, policies and best practices.

Automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) have enjoyed their most success to date in manufacturing environments primarily because manufacturing processes are predictable and repeatable. In addition, manufacturing has relatively consistent daily output compared to a typical warehouse. This enables autonomous vehicles supporting these processes to typically move products from one station to the next at regular intervals, often traveling continuous paths.

In contrast, warehousing requirements are more complex and less predictable. Automated forklifts need to be able to go anywhere within the warehouse, travel to multiple locations to fulfill a single order and adapt to varying workloads, all in highly congested areas that often include pedestrians and operator-driven forklifts.

As they reach their full potential, AGVs in the future will be adept at navigating around pallets and other temporary obstructions that might be in their path. They will be able to assess whether an aisle is too congested for travel and be capable of rerouting their paths on the fly. They will be able to travel faster when there are no people in the area and slow down when pedestrians and manually driven forklifts are within proximity. This dynamic “robotic-like” behavior will require a much greater degree of vehicle intelligence and autonomy than is currently in use. It also will require a greater need to educate and train personnel interacting with the automated forklifts about safety.

As the technology advances, more sophisticated, lower cost sensing and mobile robotic computing technologies coupled with other disruptive technologies, such as cloud computing, will enable truly autonomous forklifts that can respond dynamically to changing circumstances within warehouse and distribution environments. Advances in 3D LIDAR, radar, time-of-flight optical sensing and pedestrian detection, will become more commonplace on automated forklifts in the future, accelerated by the autonomous vehicle technology advancements in the automotive industry.

With that said, forklift automation has made notable technological progress in recent years and is currently being successfully applied to some specific warehouse applications, including transport of pallets to and from storage, very narrow-aisle pallet put-away and retrievals and low-level order picking. The technology is still maturing and evolving to the point where it holds real promise to be an integral part of the warehouse of the future.

If you’re already using or considering the technology, there are a number of factors that should be considered to maximize the value of the investment; as well as critical steps you can take to help inform and educate employees about safety.

For example, safety audits are essential in any forklift automation project. This will help you identify potential safety concerns, note necessary steps to be taken and outline required training to lessen risk to warehouse personnel as much as possible.

Many organizations moving forward with forklift automation also conduct a pilot prior to widespread implementation. These programs must be carefully designed and evaluated to ensure that the results achieved can be scaled across the organization and do not severely disrupt day-to-day operations. A pilot program is a great way to uncover potential safety issues and gain a better understanding of adjustments that may be needed to your safety training, policies and best practices. For instance, if automated forklifts are operating in an environment with operator-driven trucks, those operators will require special training on how to co-exist with automated vehicles

Above all else, remember that forklift automation is not a replacement for forklift safety; but rather an enabler to new productivity increases that require a rethinking of how safety can be maintained in such an environment.