Lift Trucks—For Real

“I would ask what’s been holding this back,” responds Scott Friedman, chief executive officer of Seegrid. “The need in the market has been there for a long time but there haven’t been appropriate technologies or an appropriate way to get it to customers. The comfort level issues are less around the automation than around the delivery system. Customers like the value they get from their suppliers and their service staff for parts, logistics and fleet management. That system has been finely honed over decades to deliver what customers want. Up until now you couldn’t deliver them automation in that way.”

Even Toyota Material Handling, U.S.A., Inc., which has established a comfortable leadership position supplying lift trucks through its dealers, has seen the wisdom of broadening its offering with automation and automatic guided vehicles (AGVs). According to Martin Boyd, vice president of product planning and marketing for TMHU, the initial stages of getting its national dealership network to support automation proved to be a bigger challenge than getting customers to buy into the technology.

“We have intentionally brought our dealers into the process by enabling them to support those AGVs in service,” Boyd says. “As they became accustomed to servicing, troubleshooting and programming these AGVs, the intimidation barriers they initially had with automation quickly eroded. Today, our dealership network is increasingly, and confidently, seeing themselves as solution providers rather than just equipment servicers and suppliers.”

Service Getting Smarter

Boyd believes one reason AGVs had limited success when first introduced to the market more than 30 years ago was that the manufacturers of these systems were the sole source of support. A nationwide servicing provider, such as we see with a lift truck distribution network, was never given that privilege. But now that lift trucks have essentially become every bit as sophisticated as AGVs, the learning curve on the service and support side isn’t as steep.

“With the technology leaps and bounds, especially with software development and memory storage, it’s not a stretch of imagination to believe that a lift truck technician can learn how an AGV operates, learn how to troubleshoot it, and even be able to troubleshoot the traffic control software,” Boyd continues. “By having that total solution mentality going into a customer, the likelihood for that customer coming back to that dealership is better.”

That doesn’t mean lift truck operators will be replaced by automation. Boyd believes companies will always need that human interaction with the material handling environment, but there are processes in manufacturing and distribution facilities that will yield a justifiable return on automation’s investment.

Mastering Alternative Powers

Just as lift truck automation is changing the buyer/seller relationship, so are trends in lift truck power sources. The productivity that’s possible with this new automation calls for power that can protect that productivity throughout an entire shift—and maybe beyond. But customers are still trying to get their heads around the nuances of quick charging and opportunity charging, as well as the promise of newer alternatives like hydrogen fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries.

“When you bring this energy into your facility there are limitations when it comes to amp draws,” says Dawley. “When putting 800 amps back into a battery in five minutes or less, what’s required from your line infrastructure? Customers have realized that if they were to put lithium ion in right now they would need to double the amperage in their facility. So we have to figure out how to meet that hurdle.”

Even today’s maintenance-free lead acid battery presents challenges and opportunities for both customers and service providers.

“So many dealers are getting out of the power game and turning it over to a battery manufacturer with a service base,” Dawley contends. “It used to be we were pushing dealers to service batteries, but as battery technology changes and you go to maintenance-free products, the dealer becomes a shuttling service between the customer and the battery manufacturer.

Frank Devlin, marketing manager, advanced technologies, for the Raymond Corp., believes that once the idea of replacing batteries with fuel cells takes hold, it will not only free users from the existing battery charging infrastructure, but it will give lift truck manufacturers more design freedom as well.