Autonomous pallet trucks: smart material handling technology

Autonomous pallet trucks are introducing a range of new capabilities for the supply chain…

Transporting goods and materials is a key part of the supply chain. This includes storage, order fulfilment and other processes. So, naturally, pallet trucks have become a staple tool for any fulfilment space.

Moving stock takes a lot of time and effort. It can also use up many resources for a business. And in an increasingly competitive market, companies need to find ways to maximise their productivity while still staying profitable.

Autonomous pallet trucks are helping address this as a more effective alternative. This smart material handling technology increases efficiency in your pallet loading, unloading and transport processes by leveraging the power of automation.

This new technology can move through a distribution centre or warehouse on its own. Unlike traditional pallet trucks, it does not need human help. Thus, freeing up your employees to focus on more complex tasks.

Many areas can utilise this technology. These include manufacturing, warehousing, and the retail supply chain. It has customisable functions that can fit your specific operational needs. Transforming logistical efficiency in industries for a variety of use cases.

In this article, we will explain how autonomous pallet trucks work. We will also discuss how they differ from non-autonomous and electric pallet trucks. You will learn about the benefits of this smart technology on the shop floor. Finally, we will cover some applications in the supply chain.

What is an autonomous pallet truck?

Electric pallet trucks have long remained a tried and tested means of safely managing massive quantities of materials. Allowing workers to quickly transport large, and often heavy loads, across the shop floor.

Autonomous pallet trucks represent the natural next step for material handling within the four walls. They help fulfillment companies automatically move inventory in the warehouse.

This can happen through steps in a workflow or by manual instructions. Removing the need for a person to operate the pallet by hand helps prevent injuries. It also improves safety.

Flexible setups let users program autonomous pallet trucks to follow different routes and paths in the warehouse. For a pallet truck warehouse, this means you can configure it to take on staging lanes, drop zones, individual spots, FIFO and more.

These routes can be improved with dynamic route planning. This helps manage traffic for load balancing. It can increase your output in operations.

This new technology can easily adapt to different spaces. There are many models that businesses can choose from.

So that you can select a model with the specifications, size and price point that best suits your business needs.

Autonomous pallet trucks vs electric pallet trucks

Electric pallet truck / powered pallet truck

The main difference between electric pallet trucks and powered pallet trucks is that they need a human to operate them.

While this does require the assignment of a member of staff to operate them, they do still offer advantages over traditional pallet trucks in other ways.

Designers create them for use with a range of pallets and boxes, often larger and heavier than traditional pallet trucks can manage. As their additional power ensures that they can help carry large pallets with less effort.

Autonomous pallet truck

Autonomous pallet trucks provide many of the same benefits as electric pallet trucks. These devices also have extra power for moving larger amounts of goods more efficiently.

They do not need a human operator to work. They also require less supervision. This greatly frees up your human resources. Your team can work mostly on their own.

As mentioned before, they also aren’t affected by factors which affect human concentration like tiredness. This means they can work for longer work cycles without compromising on efficiency.

Also, there are many extra features that can be added to your operations. This depends on the pallet truck model. Such as self-charging capabilities, which means they can run 24/7 through charging at opportune moments in their workflow.

They also have license plate number (LPN) scanning built in. This allows them to scan barcodes. They can even update your management system automatically with this information.

Why use pallet trucks with autonomous features?

Improve productivity

Boosting productivity is a key goal for any fulfilment organisation. With automation, this goal becomes much easier to achieve.

By using autonomous pallet trucks, companies can keep their material handling tasks on track. They can also increase their operations when needed.

Enhance health & safety

Another key benefit of automated pallet trucks is that they can reduce or eliminate human errors. This helps prevent mistakes caused by hazards that people might not see.

These robotic solutions use very sensitive motion sensors. They detect anything in their path and stop quickly. Or divert to a safer, alternative path.

Thus, taking your workers out of potentially dangerous scenarios and keeping them, your goods and your equipment safe.

Redistribute human workers

Your staff are a valuable resource. You want to ensure that people with different skills can contribute more effectively to the business.

Training takes a lot of time and money. You don’t want to waste it on boring manual tasks. Robotic technology can perform these tasks better.

Customisable routes

Autonomous pallet trucks are a type of autonomous mobile robot (AMR). You can program them to follow specific paths in a facility. Some will connect directly to the warehouse management system (WMS) through your network. They will follow dynamic pathways.

Others can work completely offline by using marked routes. You can easily customise these to fit the unique layout of a DC or warehouse.

Manually powered controls

Many autonomous pallet trucks offer a hybrid setup, where automation functionality can be leveraged alongside more traditional manual controls. So, should a worker need to manually correct the pallet truck, they can engage the manual controls and operate it like a regular powered pallet truck.

Variety of price points

With the wide variety of models available, there are also a range of different price points. The type of autonomous pallet truck you need depends on several factors.

These include your budget, the size of your facility, and the complexity of your material handling. Health and safety rules also play a role, along with other considerations. Even if your premises are smaller and your budget smaller still, there are plenty of affordable price points available for this type of technology.

The ideal use cases for autonomous material handling

Automated pallet trucks in the warehouse / DC

When deploying automated material handling technology in a pallet truck warehouse, there are a range of ways that they can enhance your material handling processes.

Here we go into detail on a use case for this smart technology, specifically in a warehouse setting:

1. When pallets arrive, they are processed as received goods and then positioned along the pathway of the autonomous pallet truck.
2. This truck is triggered by either alerts from your WMS, remotely via an app or through manual input.
3. It will then seamlessly engage with the pallets, lift its consignment and safely manoeuvre it through the warehouse. Swiftly moving the pallets into their designated inventory space.
4. This process can be similarly repeated when goods are being processed via goods out, for fast loading onto vehicles for dispatch.

Both these processes ensure your goods are safely and quickly taken out of the way, freeing up the space for more usage.

Utilising automation and robotics in manufacturing

There are of course also a lot of benefits, many of which are already being widely leveraged within the industry, to deploying automation and robotics in manufacturing.

1. A specific use case for an automated pallet truck would be when goods that have undergone quality checks, and can now be transported out of inventory, are moved to a designated area for collection by the autonomous pallet trucks.
2. These goods will then be transported for safe removal and can even be lifted into a waiting truck depending on your loading set-up.
3. Additionally, if there are any issues throughout this process then, so long as it has an electric / powered material handling and manual control functionality, any worker can help take over the task.

Conclusion

Autonomous pallet trucks are one of natural next steps for smarter material handling in the supply chain. These incredibly innovative technology solutions enable warehouses to seamlessly integrate automation into their workflows and processes.

Automation makes the handling of materials not only safer, removing the risk factor for any of your employees, but also greatly increases efficiency and productivity in your pallet truck operations.

This is not just from the autonomous pallet trucks themselves, but also from better redistributing your human resources throughout your operations.

These factors all enhance your business and lead to considerable cost savings. This technology has seen a variety of advancements in recent years, leading to a greater range of price points and features for warehouses, DCs and manufacturing plants of all shapes and sizes.

With the right technology partner, you can deploy automation seamlessly. At Renovotec, our technology services ensure that your solutions are tailored to your business needs.

We observe your operations to get a detailed understanding of your processes and business in general, we then make recommendations that are customised to your needs based on these observations.

Finally, we handle both the initial deployment and the post-deployment integration of this technology into your operations, providing you with support throughout.

Contact us today to book a FREE robotics & automation consultation with our experts.