The forklift industry’s fortunes were mixed last year and are likely to remain so this year but will the overall recovery encourage the uptake of cheaper, smarter forklift automation now that the investment decisions are less uncertain? With the exception of Britain, western Europe, easily the biggest market for trucks, was flat last year owing largely to the European sovereign debt crisis, but eastern Europe and Russia came to the rescue, with a 6% rise in unit sales in the first nine months of last year. In Britain, “the overall market grew very slightly” in 2013, says James Clarke, secretary-general of the British Industrial Truck Association, but he adds: “It feels like the shackles have been removed and we are able to look forward with genuine optimism.” Overall, says Kion, the world market grew by 5% in the first nine months of 2013, to 753,900 trucks.
While economic and political uncertainties still hang over the forklift sector, and by extension the whole global economy, the overall message, according to Doosan Industrial Vehicle, is that economic recovery is underway and that customers have decided to buy forklifts again. Given such newfound confidence, it seems buyers are also prepared to spend on automation where there are clear, enticing, economic benefits. A good example is Seegrid’s 350% rise in 2013 orders for its flexible automated guided vehicles (AGVs). Seegrid’s Amanda Merrell, says: “Many companies have survived the past several years by ‘leaning out’ their organisations and working smarter. I see this trend continuing even as manufacturing increases. This should lend itself to more purchases of equipment that will increase productivity by increasing efficiency of the people that are hard at work today.”
However, what could be a top hot topic in a rethink on automation is the move to semi truck automation. Hitherto, many companies were put off by full truck automation, owing to high installation costs, teething troubles and, perhaps, the irony of employing staff to keep an eye on the supposedly autonomous machines. To overcome this, Crown believes the way ahead is the dual-use approach, which is a standard truck that can be used equally well autonomously, rather than a truck that could be left gathering dust owing to a problem with the truck or its supporting infrastructure.
Linde has echoed this sentiment by joining with Seegrid to automate its P50C tow tractor for European use. The truck uses vision guidance to navigate in the existing infrastructure, following a route programmed in by a keypad, with no modification to the facility required.
A good example of high returns from relatively cheap semi-automation is Crown’s QuickPick remote order picking technology. The driver wears a glove-mounted switch that controls truck movement while dismounted. By pressing a button on the glove, the operator can remotely advance the forklift to the next pick location, eliminating much of the need to return to the operator compartment. Crown claims from field studies that it helps reduce the number of steps on and off the platform by up to 70%, translating to an average 10-25% rise in productivity.
Still Materials Handling have come up with something similar with its iGo package of automated products that also uses standard production high lift stackers, order pickers and tow tractors, controlled by a remote operator, providing all the benefits of automation at a fraction of the cost that a purpose-designed setup would need.
It could be argued that the tribulations of the forklift industry since 2008 brought on by the credit crunch have had some positive effects. It has goaded the whole global logistics chain to become more efficient through ‘leaning out’, which in turn has birthed more efficient, ergonomic and therefore productive machines. Progress cannot always be without tears.
Comments are closed.