The Lift Truck Issue: Innovation in action

My loose definition of a “long-standing tradition” is something that brings enough value and benefit that it’s worth the effort and investment to keep it going for a significant period of time.

We have a number of long-standing traditions across our publications in the Supply Chain Group at Peerless Media. One of those is Modern’s Lift Truck Issue, now rolling into its 12th year. While we commit a fair amount of editorial coverage to lift trucks each year, this month you’ll find a majority of the issue focused on the equipment’s latest developments.

In this issue, we learn that one of the world’s most innovative supply chain organizations believes the time is right for autonomous lift trucks; we offer our annual deep dive into the Top 20 lift truck suppliers; we roll out our annual reader survey that illustrates the state of lift truck usage and investment; and we learn that even an autonomous lift truck fleet is going to need some level of human oversight.

In last year’s issue, executive editor Bob Trebilcock brought us up to speed on the continued evolution of the autonomous lift truck, a technology that opened some eyes over a decade ago and was gaining some impressive momentum. Fast forward a year and he takes us inside DHL’s 800,000-square-foot Findlay, Ohio, operation that’s currently taking a thoughtful, step-by-step approach to rolling out its initial application of the technology.

“Back in early 2018, DHL deployed six autonomous mobile robots in an 18,000-square-foot area in a facility handling medical devices,” says Trebilcock. “Fast forward to 2022, and DHL has now deployed more than 2,000 bots in North America and has surpassed 100 million units picked across more than a dozen North American facilities. They’re now tackling autonomous lift trucks in much the same manner.”

As Trebilcock reports, the initial application of the technology is limited to a portion of the Findlay facility and is now managing a small group of mid- to slow-moving SKUs. “The application is also measured and is limited to the putaway and retrieval of pallets from double-deep pallet rack going up six locations,” he says. “However, we can expect those numbers to expand in the coming years as the technology matures, and as DHL gains experience and can apply its learnings to other processes.”

And while Trebilcock paints a portrait of graceful autonomous innovation in action, senior editor Roberto Michel reports this month that it’s still a little early to cut humans entirely from that picture. He takes us one step deeper into some of the nuance revolving around this technology—specifically, where humans fit in.

“While industry needs robots to help offset labor and customer service pressures, it’s often overlooked that robots need people,” says Michel. “And as we’re finding, even autonomous lift trucks have some type of performance monitoring and exception handling technology that features a human in a support role. Any way we slice it, robots and humans will remain closely linked, especially as a number of autonomous lift truck types and use cases are still emerging.”