30 DC VELOCITY SEPTEMBER 2015 www.dcvelocity.com
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up additional ways to apply lift truck telematics and data
technologies. If their ideas become reality, then the forklift of the future could be more akin to something from
“Star Trek” or “The Jetsons” than to the basic material
handling tool of the past.
SO WHAT’S NEW?
Communication terminals that integrate with a truck’s
on-board electronics to collect and wirelessly send and
receive data have been available for some time now from
both lift truck makers and independent providers. These
systems handle information about almost any lift truck
“experience” you can think of: impacts, utilization, maintenance and repair, vehicle inspections, and operator productivity, among others. Depending on the product, they
may track a lift truck’s location or remotely control its
activities, by regulating speed or preventing unauthorized
users from starting the engine, for example.
Fleet managers must be able to analyze and act on all
that data, of course. For that reason, telematics systems
typically include or integrate with fleet management
software. Via a management dashboard, users can view
current and historical data and generate reports about
performance, utilization, safety, costs, and productivity
for an entire fleet or for individual trucks and operators.
The systems also send out alerts via text, e-mail, or the
dashboard. All these features allow fleet managers to see
trends as they develop and be proactive rather than simply
address problems after the fact.
Recent developments have made lift truck telematics
and associated technologies even more advantageous. For
example, some systems now use cellular networks and
devices to transmit data. That makes telematics available
to many fleets that couldn’t take advantage of it before,
says Dick Sorenson, product director at TotalTrax Inc.,
a provider of automated vehicle, driver, and inventory
tracking products that recently launched a version featuring cellular technology and services supplied by Wyless.
With standard wireless systems, users must get approval
to use their existing Wi-Fi network for data transfer to
a server—and it’s not uncommon for such a request to
be turned down, Sorenson says. Furthermore, they often
must install additional communications infrastructure
and get their IT departments involved in the implementation. With a cellular-based system, he says, none of that
is necessary, making installation much faster and cheaper.
Toyota Industrial Equipment also introduced a cellular-based telematics product earlier this year. The company teamed up with Sprint to offer T-Matics Mobile,
a lower-priced “plug and play” version of its T-Matics
