What are the emerging trends and innovations in material handling for energy and emission reduction?

My company is also using these technologies to communicate with our forklifts. We use GPS to tell our customers where their equipment is in their buildings. We can provide information if the equipment has an impact (accident). This helps control damage to people and equipment.

A movement we see within the industry is marking product with RFID tags, and adding stickers onto products to signify a part number. When people think of lowering emissions, their mind goes to ICE, Farming, and Aerospace. What get's overlooked is what YOU can do to lower emissions. How about getting a caster refurbished instead of buying new? How much energy does your computer use looking for a part w/o a part number? All these small things add up. The epitome of the butterfly effect is what we can as individuals do to lower emissions.

If you are considering making the from I.C. forklifts to electric forklifts, save yourself from the countless maintenance headaches associated with lead acid batteries and go with lithium power instead. If you are already using electric forklifts but haven't made the switch to lithium, you're missing some very low hanging fruit (zero maintenance, increased efficiencies, lower energy costs, improved safety, etc, etc,), and regardless of your forklift fleet size should not be overlooked.

Our forklifts are able to automatically adjust speeds to prevent collisions. This is an optional feature that many companies appreciate. Safety is a big focus in our industry.

We see companies moving away from large overhead cranes to electric omni-directional transporters. Not only better for the environment, but they are safer to use and do not require specialized operators.

Off site building is the home building model of the future. Being in the construction space for a good portion of my childhood, I know that on site construction can take forever. Not to mention you are at complete mercy of the elements. Assembling in the factory controls your process, maximizes efficiency, all while being away from the elements.

Robotics and Automation plays a vital role in shaping today's material flow in a warehouse or in production line. When it comes to usage of Drones for monitoring picking, sorting, put away activities; or use of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR's) in place of tugger trains for pallet movement, or even use of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV's) for easy handling of tools and part movement in production lines and operations, this not only reduces human error and labor costs, but also ensures safety in material handling operations. Also, as today's world is in a mission that moves towards sustainable energy, reduction of carbon footprint, these technologies add fuel and value to the mission.

Refurbishing an application may not only be more cost friendly, but also cause the lowest amount of down time. Make sure the product you are looking to refurbish is a standard product. Refurbishing a product made especially for you is going to take much longer. Probably even longer than getting a new one. It never hurts to ask the manufacturer if they can refurbish your application.

Return on Investment, or ROI In my years in this space. I know that most people factor ROI on dollars saved. This is far from the only stat used for factoring ROI. 1.) Worker Availability - What is the ROI on having 1 person complete a job as opposed to 4? 2.) Down Time - If everything is running smooth, how much does your plant make? What if your conveyance line is down for half the day? 3.) Durability - Some quick math - Would you rather spend 30 dollars on a caster replacing them 4 times a year, or spend 150 dollars on a caster while replacing them once every 2 years? 4.) Injuries - National Academies Press has annual workers comp claims measuring 50 BILLION dollars. Know what YOU would save on.

In 13 years of experience with material handling equipment sales, automation ROI is short term in comparison to the length of equipment life. You are already spending the money for automation by excessive maintenance to keep aging equipment going after it should be replaced and wasteful process systems. It’s an issue of managing your existing dollars differently. Why not take advantage of efficiency? Employees are in short supply. Use your people to think and solve problems while mundane tasks and be done by automation equipment.