DC Velocity - October 2014

t ec hnol ogyr ev i ew

48 DC VELOCITY OCTOBER 2014 www.dcvelocity.com
automated guided vehicles had
shown that the radio-based technol-
ogy would not work reliably in the
Bobcat warehouses. “We knew that
the volume of steel in the facilities
would lead to inaccuracy or lost sig-
nals,” Herbst says. What the compa-
ny needed, he adds, was something
that was visually based.

AN “INDOOR GPS”

The company found the solution it sought in SmartLIFT technology from Swisslog. SmartLIFT (an acronym for Smart Labor, Inventory, and Forklift Tracking) is an integrat-

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Logistics
Distribution
Manufacturing
Speed to Market
ROI
Big Data
Smart Growth
Demand Planning / Visibility
Omni-channel
Smart Devices
E-fulfillment
Push vs. Pull
“Store-Friendly” Shipments
Increasing Returns
Reverse Logistics
Network Optimization
Distribution Center Profitability
Labor Management
Accuracy
Automation
Transportation
Product Safety
Regulations
Nearshoring
Value Added Service
Customer Satisfaction
Chain of Custody
An Associated Company © 2014 Peach State Integrated Technologies
ed software suite that generates business
intelligence by processing “traditional”
warehouse management system (WMS)
or labor management system (LMS) data
with “new” data collected via sensor tech-
nology powered by TotalTrax Inc. A.K.
Schultz, Swisslog’s vice president respon-
sible for the SmartLIFT product, puts it
this way: “This is where big data meets
forklifts. We have taken WMS data, com-
bined it with telemetry from sensors,
and created all-new dashboards and algo-
rithms that never existed before.”
An extension of Swisslog’s automat-
ed material handling solutions for ware-
houses and DCs, SmartLIFT essential-
ly serves as a real-time location system
designed for indoor use—you could think
of it as an “indoor GPS.” It combines a
number of technologies into a system that
provides information on current lift truck
speed, location, and direction—informa-
tion that is accurate to within an inch, the
company says—and data capture tools
that can deliver accurate location infor-
mation on every pallet handled.

As for how it all works, Sahil Patel, Swisslog’s program manager for SmartLIFT, explains that the tracking system relies on 11- by 11-inch 2-D bar codes affixed to the ceiling of the warehouse. Mounted on the roof of each SmartLIFT-equipped lift truck is an infra-red optical position sensor that determines the vehicle’s location by scanning the overhead bar codes. The sensor needs a visual line to only one of those bar codes to establish accurate location information. Between the lift truck masts is an optical label reader, which allows the lift truck driver to automatically scan a pallet label. Also mounted to the forks are a lift height sensor and a pallet detector. All those tools feed information in real time through a terminal mounted on the vehicle to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or WMS.

Patel says the system provides a number of advantages. Because it links forklift movement with the data on the pallets, the system tracks inventory movement as well as forklift movement. Once the pallet is scanned, its real-time location information is captured and updated.