Tour Blog

Ridiculus sociosqu cursus neque cursus curae ante scelerisque vehicula.

An American forklift veteran said: how does the forklift industry change?

When it comes to what is going to happen in the forklift industry, those who have gone through many years of evolution are often a good judge of what is happening and wher we are going from here.
 
Like many industries, most of the new things we see today, as well as what we plan to do tomorrow, have been seen in our industry.
 
Technology is new and stronger, and the speed of change is faster than ever, but a lot of things that have happened in our industry have happened before and are fundamentally linked to a fact. These are the actions that can be foreseen, changing and people's trust in change, which will win the future.
 
My name is Chris Kuny, and I personally work for 38 years in the forklift industry (MITSUBISHI Caterpillar forklift sales general manager, Equipment Depot service manager, Big Joe technical consultant). During this period, I saw several changes. At the same time, I worked in one of the biggest companies in the forklift industry. A few years ago, I was retired because of age and energy. But about 60 days after retirement, I felt that my retirement was not suitable for me. I returned to my favorite forklift industry and I joined the Big Joe team.
 
Big Joe focuses on the fastest and innovative work in the field of material handling, which makes me extremely happy because it gives me a variety of fun. As they say, the change is good. Here are some of my views. A forbidding old car in the forklift industry looks at the forklift industry with fresh perspective.
 
The THE WAREHOUSE HAS CHANGED warehouse has changed
 
The biggest change I've seen is the huge change in warehousing. To supplement stores in retail stores, it's more to pick low, high class orders to support e - commerce. The retail distribution center is now delivering smaller pallet goods to retailers, not once a week, now usually three times a week to support the most immediate and immediate product options in store - level stocks. To do this, a wide range of changes in the warehouse are needed, and some warehouses do work hard to overcome the old traditions and overcome the limitations of systems and equipment that are no longer suitable. The facilities are also trying to support both retail stores and direct consumer oriented E-Commerce orders. Usually referred to as "omni-channel distribution", it needs to mix different needs of product flow on one site, and bring all kinds of fun to those who like challenges. It is similar to running two restaurants and restaurants in the same space, and trying to please two types of customers at the same time.

In order to work in such an environment, the warehouse has responded, placing more warehouse points near the population center, trying to maintain the flexibility of the storage and calculating the fastest delivery of goods from the warehouse. In the whole distribution supply chain, "real time" inventory is becoming more and more common because of the demand for overnight delivery and two day delivery, and the inventory control system is becoming fully integrated to support these new models. A weekly order or a number of facilities that are currently dealing with the order, all the arrangements, more and more powerful system operations, increasing predictable demand algorithms, and a variety of integrated and coordinated operations.
 
This is really a brave new world, and in the warehouse, the days of "Stack Them High, Let'em Fly" (more piles, better sales) are more or less gone.
 
MORE VARIETY, LESS TIME, more options, shorter time.
 
Specifically, less time to process and allocate more categories (SKU) is a critical task now. This forced the logistics companies to concentrate on the more efficient warehouse space and the more efficient and useful loading and unloading equipment.
 
As an example of such an example, large e-commerce giants have to create excellent storage efficiency to deal with the quantity, variety and speed, otherwise they can not provide a more attractive advantage than the traditional retail business. To do that, e-commerce giants spend huge sums of money on experiments, reiterates and failures, and learn quickly to find out what is most suitable for public needs in warehouses. E-business tycoons allocate efficiency and benefits from this process, and then force large supermarket retailers to keep up, either to play online, or to provide more consumer value in the store itself. Large retail stores do not have no advantages, such as having close proximity to customers, but in e-commerce, they are lagging behind and are trying to catch up. As the big business has done, it is forcing the e-commerce giant into the position of traditional entities and brick walls, creating a very active fight, which dominates many of the changes we see today. No one has yet figured out the perfect model, and many have begun to add more flexibility and adaptability and try to pursue perfection.

For us, the top priority is to pay great efforts to the product, such as our Big Joe J1JOEY Task Support Vehicle car is the right trend. J1 JOEY is light and flexible, and provides 1 tons of carrying capacity. It solves more DCs and store level with less time and space. J1 JOEY can be in 6 'channel, and support stacking small orders up to 20'..., which means there is expansion in vertical and horizontal space. Even the store stores in the local stores send and receive goods very simply. It's a very lightweight machine. It's a product that I am full of changes and challenges in the forklift industry's career.
 
SAFETY CHANGES security changes
 
Another major change I see is the safety of forklifts, involving possible workers' injuries. Some forklift manufacturers include stabilization systems or Blu ray lights. When forklifts are approaching pedestrians, they warn pedestrians to pay attention to safety. The speed limit of some forklifts is only 5 miles, which affects the productivity of quite expensive forklifts. In Big Joe, our focus is on the back of the forklift truck. We even see many customers who want to remove the station driving function regardless of 37 twenty-one.  Compared with a 3 ton forklift with a speed of up to 10 miles, Big Joe's walking stacker can operate extensively, and has many advantages in safety.
 
They are running about normal walking speed of 3 M / s, the weight is only 1/4 type car.
They have no rear counterweight, nor in front of high bulk goods, usually in the car - this is a blind spot.
Usually, walking is better in visibility and attention during operation.
In addition, in terms of safety, I also saw many people away from manual devices, such as rolling ladder and manual pallet trucks. Compared with the company's inappropriate use of devices that may lead to risk of fall or back injury, employee injuries and turnover losses are much more expensive.

In the product line of Big Joe, small products and small electric tray cars instead of ladder are emphasized on this safety issue. It's not acceptable to use conveyor machines or to think that people can move goods down the ladder. People's value is too high. When it comes to safety and basic workers' tasks, the attitude of most industries is definitely changing.
 
You can check from one of my clients, Victory Packaging - a worker claim over 1 million dollars in a few years, to a few simple small machines that almost eliminated the condition of workers' claim for work injury.
 
BIG DATA & ANALYTICS HASCHANGED THE GAME, big data and analysis to change the game.
Over the past ten years, our customers have got very complicated contents in fleet management and data analysis. The company collects data on fuel usage, battery usage, operators often bump into things, driving speed and more. I also see a growing number of companies using remote information processing and Internet of things technology to reduce the cost of fleet operations, and even tie their forklifts directly into their WMS (warehouse management system). By doing so, forklift trucks and their operators are becoming so integrated that several workers can do that, which really surprised me. In the forklift, companies can save money by identifying poor and unsafe drivers by checking which batteries are most effective in running, and getting better fuel efficiency in LPG forklift trucks to get better energy use. In operation, large data and analysis means better order picking strategy, routing, storage utilization, and real-time requirements for matching inventory and warehouse configuration.

SEEING THE FUTURE looks forward to the future
Though I have seen the past 38 years, I can't see the perfect vision of the future. No one can... But based on what I saw before, I think automation is the first change of forklift industry in the future, especially in the next 5 years.
 
The second is how to change the power and design of forklift and make forklift more suitable for tomorrow's world. All the things I have discussed in this direction are pointing in this direction and are laying the foundation for the biggest change in my career, and this remains to be further developed. It should be a great journey. 30 years ago, manufacturing industry experienced this change. Now we see that drastic changes have taken place in logistics, and prepare for the next thing. Another wave of change is coming, just like those I've been before, I expect it.
 
By Chris Kuny - ckuny@bigjoeforklifts.com
Source: Chinese forklift tribe JitLogistics

Sign In