Boxing clever

Can the humble forklift truck be improved with smarter software? John Dunn reports

Forklift trucks have been around now for almost 100 years in some form or other. And they are probably getting to the point where they cannot travel any faster or lift goods more quickly. But with forklift trucks still at the heart of the food and drink supply chain, can anything be done to improve their productivity?

Steve Richmond, general manager of the UK division of forklift truck manufacturer Jungheinrich, believes the future lies in cramming more and more intelligence on to the forklift and integrating it into the whole supply chain logistics operation.

"You can't change the laws of physics and so trucks are fast approaching their physical limitations in terms of load weight and lift height capacity. The way forward has to involve enabling the truck and operator to become part of the overall logistics process," says Richmond.

An example of this is Jungheinrich's new vertical order pickers. The trucks are equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) to automatically guide them to the right location in the right aisle in the warehouse. The on-board RFID navigation system enables the operator to receive picking instructions from the warehouse management system. This automatically guides the truck to where the goods are stored. It takes the shortest route and goes at the right speed to minimise travel time and cut energy consumption.

But what if you could change the laws of physics, or at least ignore them? What if you could get rid of the battery? As Robert O'Donoghue, general manager of warehouse products for truck maker Hyster says, the whole concept of aisle width in a warehouse is based on the size of the forklift truck. For food and drink operations, that is an electric truck. And that means big, heavy, lead-acid truck batteries. "Smaller batteries really would revolutionise forklift truck design and warehouse design. Smaller batteries would really change everything."

Eliminating batteries

So why not get rid of the batteries? That is what SSI Schaefer has done with its newly launched Orbiter deep pallet storage and retrieval system. The Orbiter is an intelligent pallet shuttle system that can travel at up to one metre a second and is capable of storing and retrieving pallets over 20 pallets back from the aisle. It may not be a forklift truck. But it doesn't use batteries, either.

The Orbiter has borrowed Formula I racing car technology known as super capacitors or power capacitors. These are big electrical capacitors which store the electricity created by the car's regenerative braking system. They are smaller and much lighter than a battery. But they only store enough energy for a few minutes work.

In the case of Orbiter, the super capacitor or power cap is charged from the mains with enough electricity for the system to store and retrieve a pallet. The Orbiter is recharged each time it enters the docking station and power caps allow the Orbiter to be used in deep-freeze environments without loss of power or efficiency. According to Bob Jane, business development manager for SSI Schaefer, the Orbiter uses 70% less energy than if it had on-board batteries.

"The capacitor will probably last 10 years a typical battery on a forklift truck will only last 18 month to two years." It only takes a few seconds to recharge and there are no recycling issues, he says.

Universal grippers

Steve Tatem prefers to use the laws of physics to his advantage to improve the way robot palletising systems go about picking up goods to stack on to or unload from pallets.

As md of TIA Robotic Tooling Solutions, he supplies vacuum grippers that robots use to pick up goods. Thanks to a rethink of the way the vacuum suction pads operate, TIA has come up with the nearest thing yet to a universal gripper.

What tends to happen with robotic palletising, says Tatem, is that a robot and a gripper are designed for a specific product. But the problem with many warehouses is that they have a lot of products of different shapes and sizes. That means frequently having to change the gripper.

What the LayerGripper has got is an array of vacuum valves inside it which open and close depending on whether there's any product underneath them. Tatem explains: "Basically they are holes with valves ball bearings inside. When you pull a vacuum on it all the holes will close off and they stay like that until you put something underneath it. Then the ball bearings pop out of the way and open the vacuum to that product." So if you have a gripper that is 1200mm by 1000mm, and you put a 100mm square box underneath it, it will only open those valves above the box.

Tatem says the LayerGripper can pick up pretty much any wrapped food or drink product, from shrink-wrapped cheese and tins of beans to bottles of fizzy drink.

"You might have tins coming down that are empty that need to be picked up and put into a filling process. The same tool could then quite easily pick up the same tins when filled. Cadbury's at Sheffield have got three of our large tools. They can handle everything that comes down the line jelly babies, liquorice, whatever."

Automating order picking

Steve Baker is head of the global industry solutions team at logistics solutions supplier Dematic. He believes another way forward is to completely automate the order picking and palletising process. "People want to handle the product less. They want to handle it once, get it right, get it done."

But how you do create a stable pallet automatically, loaded by robot, where every order is different and all the cases are different shapes and sizes, so that the whole thing doesn't fall over?

Dematic has solved the problem for Carlsberg in Denmark with software that takes the order say five cases of beer, five cases of crisps, and three cases of wine and compares it with each product's characteristics: is it heavy, is it light, is it crushable, is it stackable?

The software then tells the palletising robot to put the heavy items at the bottom and the crushable items on the top. It will also tell the system to send the cases to the robot in the right order for it to build the pallet.

WHEN YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN INSURANCE COVER MAY NOT BE WHAT YOU THINK...

The forklift truck may be a vital part of your food chain logistics. But equally vital is your haulier, his lorries, and his distribution warehouses. Just how much control do you have over your products once your stacked pallets disappear inside those lorries?

Not a lot, according to Ian Edwards, food and drink partner at insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT). He recalls a case in which a food manufacturer had £20,000 of food on a lorry when the lorry caught fire. But when a claim was put in to the logistics company, it came back citing a £250,000 deductible (excess).

In other words, the food manufacturer was responsible for the first £250,000 of any loss. In another case, says Edwards, a food company had stored its packaging at a third-party logistics site. "But strong smells from chemical products in the neighbouring racking had infused into our client's packaging materials, causing a taste issue when it came to be used later on."

The product had to be recalled, but the operation was not insured under the client's recall policy, says Edwards, because there was no risk of bodily injury to the consumer.

The lesson here is to ensure that you understand and monitor the method, location and suitability of third-party storage arrangements, says Edwards.

But the usual problem he finds is that in a loss, the value of the goods destroyed exceeds the value per tonne limit of liability contained within the terms and conditions of the carrier or warehouse operator. Any third-party logistics company will restrict the amount it will pay out for a loss unless a higher value has been agreed in advance. The lesson here is not to rely on the haulier's standard contract for insurance, but amend it or, better, take out your own insurance.

"If you can amend it and it might mean them paying a bit more then you know where you stand," says Edwards. "Alternatively, insure your own produce and arrange a policy in your own name covering your product while in the hands of third-party hauliers. Our recommendation is always to ensure your own produce. You are insuring it while it is in your own factory, so it makes perfect sense to continue that insurance chain until it reaches your customer."

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