Plenty of lift truck technologies are in play—so many that it can be daunting to pick the winners. Just a few include autonomous lift trucks, telematics and fleet software, virtual reality (VR) software, and digital cameras that integrate with truck forks.

One thing all these technologies have in common is the ability to improve labor efficiency. As a result, one can assess value by how much efficiency a technology can bring to an operation relative to its cost. Think of it as a sliding scale for lift truck technologies.

Few distribution centers are ready to acquire an entire fleet of autonomous trucks, but many can benefit from smaller investments like adding cameras or telematics to conventional vehicles, or perhaps going to full automation for some workflows, explains Jack Kaumo, director of iWarehouse solutions for Raymond Corp., a lift truck vendor.

“The overall theme we’re seeing right now is labor,” says Kaumo. “Labor is consistently a top concern because of the shortage of skilled operators and also retention of operators. That makes improving labor efficiencies fundamental.”

Lift truck suppliers offer a broad range of technologies, including telematics and fleet software, autonomous lift trucks, and other advancements like lithium ion (Li-ion) trucks. Another shift in the market is that vendors are now focusing more on solutions and systems, saysBrian Markison, senior director of sales and marketing with lift truck provider Unicarriers Americas Corp.

“From the customer’s perspective, it’s more than buying iron now, because you’re putting in these vehicles as part of an overall process that is aimed at meeting some productivity improvement goals,” says Markison. “So, as a vendor, you must be able to provide products as part of a solution.”

Here is a look at few of the top lift truck technologies, with an eye to how they help make an operation more productive and safer.

Fully autonomous

While fully autonomous lift trucks carry a higher price tag than conventional trucks of similar type, they can bring payback by fully automating select workflows, especially repetitive transportation. While some autonomous vehicles are capable of vertical lifting tasks, horizontal transportation are perhaps the best fit, says Markison.

“Right now, good applications [for autonomous] are transportation scenarios like crossdocking, or transporting pallets from receiving to storage staging, or in a DC that serves manufacturing, moving goods from receiving to a manufacturing line,” says Markison.

Unicarriers partners with Roclato offer Rocla’s automatic guided vehicle (AGV) solutions to the Americas. These vehicles can autonomously lift loads. Unicarriers also has a partnership with Vecna Robotics, a provider of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), though which Unicarriers manufactures and promotes their pallet jacks running Vecna’s Pivotal automation software.

Ultimately, it depends on customer needs as to what type of driverless lift trucks and applications will bring the most value, Markison says, but eliminating longer haul, repetitive moves, is a top consideration. “With autonomous vehicles, you take some of the pressure off your traditional vehicles and their operators, allowing them to focus on high-value tasks,” Markison says.

Autonomous trucks shine at both longer haul “horizontal” duties as well as the need to lift goods vertically, says Kevin Paramore, emerging technology commercialization manager forYale Materials Handling, a lift truck provider. “The technology’s value comes in providing for very consistent, repeatable processes while reducing labor requirements,” Paramore says.

Paramore advises that autonomous lift trucks, tow tractors and other robotic vehicles typically don’t operate as fast or aggressively as a human operated equivalent does, which is why Yale figures it takes about 1.3 robotic lift trucks to replace the workload of one human-operated vehicle. However, with many DCs running multiple shifts, while struggling to find enough operators, robotic trucks can bring payback in as little as two years for a two-shift operation.

Additionally, says Paramore, robotics can pick a pallet off the floor level and onto a conveyor, as well as lift trucks capable of lifting pallets to higher positions in multi-level storage. In fact, says Paramore, because of the way robotic lift trucks instantly process sensor and camera data to govern movements, a robotic lift truck can begin to be just as efficient as a skilled reach truck operator when handling pallets more than three positions high, and even faster than most human operators at higher levels.

Paramore agrees, however, that robotic trucks and tow tractors are well matched to longer horizontal moves, or tasks like hauling and returning waste bins. In a more manual lift truck fleet, such repetitive duties eat up considerable operator time, which can influence employee burnout. “The X that we’re often trying to solve with robotics is helping our customers reduce employee churn and all the costs associated with that like training,” says Paramore.

Fully automated trucks are ideal for tasks that involve repetitive movements, agrees Raymond’s Kaumo, such as inbounding processes, or shuttling non-conveyables. Today, if done with conventional trucks or tuggers, such workflows eat up a lot of labor capacity with what Kaumo calls “windshield time.” Raymond also offers an automated stacker truck for moving loads from floor to conveyor.

On the other hand, Kaumo says, some DCs or workflows might not yet call for full automation, but could benefit from partial automation using Raymond’s zoning and positioning, or “ZaP” technology. This technology uses some guidance infrastructure to transmit instructions to compatible trucks, overriding manual controls to allow for precision guidance. With ZaP guidance, the most efficient paths are always taken, says Kaumo. “It’s a semi-automated path to start seeing some of the benefits of automation,” he says.

Lift truck providerCrown Equipment offers autonomous trucks such as a tow tractor that is capable of switching into manual mode when needed, according to Andy Smith, director of marketing product management for Crown.

“What we are hearing from our customers is a growing need for these dual-mode type of lift trucks,” says Smith. “Manual operation makes it easy to manually move vehicles to accommodate dynamic changes in the production plan, retrieve vehicles from the floor, move them into storage, deliver them for maintenance, or use them in unique situations without the need for specialized operator training.”