Industrial trucks, such as forklifts, are key enablers of logistics performance in warehouses. Being critical resources of warehousing processes, their optimal utilization and the prevention of waste in relation to the use of forklifts are of ever increasing importance. Hence, real-time data about the activities of the trucks are required for both immediate reactions on an operational level and retrospective analyses for tactical adjustments.
In the ongoing research initiative, a technical solution concept has been developed and implemented which aims at collecting activity data of an industrial truck used in an indoor warehousing environment. For this reason, different sensors are used for monitoring individual functions of an industrial truck. The truck activities monitored by means of the sensors are its acceleration behavior, i.e. speed and vibration, as well as surrounding temperatures. In addition, the occupation status and the movement of the fork have been monitored and recorded. Thereby, logistics managers and analysts are facilitated to gain insight into the activity profile of the individual truck and the entire fleet, respectively, and to derive adequate measures of adjustment or even correction.
The paper illustrates details of the technical solution concept and presents a first set of experimentation results.
