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Warehouse & DC <strong>Management</strong>11 is powered conventionally with ICHydrostatic drives. “The vast majorityof the equipment in use todayengines or battery power,” says MarkRoessler, general product managerfor Linde Material Handling NorthAmerica. “Because of that, our focushas been on optimizing those designsfor the end user.” At Linde, that translatesinto hydrostatic drives that useoil flow and pressure to accelerate anddecelerate the truck in either direction.“With hydrostatic drives, thereare no friction brakes, no mechanicaltransmissions, no drive shafts, and noU joints,” says Roessler. “That allowsyou to eliminate the wear and tear inthe drive system.”Getting narrower in narrow aisle.As warehouses strive to get more stor-12 age in the same amount of space, narrowand very narrow aisle lift trucksare key. “When we first started in thisbusiness, our trucks operated in a7-foot aisle,” says Landoll’s Campbell.“Today, we’re operating in less than 6feet in articulating trucks.” Part of thatis attributed to redesigning the articulationassembly of the trucks so they aremore compact and thinner to work ina narrower aisle. Another is to design afront end that can rotate 200 degreesinstead of 180 degrees.“As you’re pulling the forks out, theystart to turn. That allows you to keepthe forks straight until you get themout of the pallet, which makes it easierto stack in a narrow aisle,” Campbellexplains. Because narrow aisle trucksare often working in high elevations,Landoll has added a low-cost camerasystem to provide visibility above 25feet as well as software that can detectand display the height elevations inevery row in a warehouse.13 14it their way. Toyota Material HandlingIntegrated scales. Burger King createda business out of letting customers haveU.S.A. (TMHU) sees a similar interestin customization among lift truckusers. “Forty percent of our orders arecustomized by the customer and manyof those innovations turn into optionsthat are later integrated into optionson the trucks,” says Cesar Jimenez,national product planning managerfor TMHU. The recently introducedintegrated forklift scale is an exampleof a feature that was developed for acustomer and is now a standard optionon Toyota trucks. The scale, which isaccurate to within half a pound and islegal for trade, allows an end user toweigh and capture the weight of a loadwhile lifting a pallet and loading it on atruck. In its current configuration, thesystem can store information about350 loads that can be downloaded toan enterprise system. “We have theability to add Bluetooth and Wi-Fito automatically transmit the data,”Jimenez says.Lithium ion batteries. Earlier thissummer at CeMAT, Jungheinrichintroduced a walkie for the Europeanmarket powered by a small lithiumion battery the size of a brief casethat can be replaced by the operatorwith no special tools. “The size of thebattery results in a very maneuverabletruck,” says Bowles. “But, as with mostnew technologies, cost is the issue andat present, the cost per kilowatt houris greater than a lead acid battery.”A hybrid lift truck. In Japan, Toyotahas introduced a true hybrid die-15 sel truck in an 8,000-pound capacitytruck. The truck operates on electricpower for applications like travel, butautomatically switches to diesel whenextra power is required for an application,just like the consumer car Prius.And, like a Prius, the batteries arerecharged when the truck is under“Forty percent of our orders arecustomized by the customerand many of those innovationsturn into options that are laterintegrated into options on thetrucks.”—Cesar Jimenez, national product planningmanager, Toyota Material Handling U.S.A.diesel power. “Because you’re notconsuming electricity from the grid,the design has resulted in a 50 percentreduction in fuel consumptionand emissions,” says Jimenez. Toyotaplans to introduce a propane-basedindoor cushion tire hybrid truck inNorth America. “Propane is the No.1 selling fuel for us in the UnitedStates,” says Jimenez. “That’s whatwe’re pushing our parent company todesign.” M46 <strong>Logistics</strong> <strong>Management</strong> WWW.LOGISTICSMGMT.COM | <strong>October</strong> <strong>2011</strong>
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