Key role for the counter balance truck

Meanwhile plans are to develop a system that is able to identify the different loading aids and the respective information unambiguously. By the use of RFID technology and modern wireless data communication industrial trucks will be able to register the loading aids such as pallets and the goods stored on them automatically and with this function serve as a coupling between the control and management levels and the internal transport of goods.

In the frame of the IdentProLog project STILL was assigned the leading role to fit the industrial trucks in such a way that they detect the loading aids reliably and provide the information to the respective back end systems. To check the overall working ability of the system and to find possible weak spots various tests and inspections are to be conducted on a demonstrator truck during the process.

To prepare this, some 150 companies working in the logistics industry have been interviewed. During the telephone interviews for which the company from Hamburg had developed the questions, the future requirements of the customers where detected. The results speak for themselves: about 75 percent of the companies are very interested in goods registering and 65 have a keen interest in material tracing by RFID. Potential users see major advantages compared to barcode systems in the fact that no optical connection between the goods and the scanner is necessary and in the high resistance of the RFID transponders against environmental effects. During operation there are many advantages caused by the automatic and error-free identification of goods and the simplified coordination of warehouse and stock management. A clear majority of the interviewees of about 80 percent highlight the positive aspects this would have for inventory management. Here the loading aids and shipping containers are seen with priority over the packages of individual goods.

Apart from the overwhelming approval of RFID technology there are additional wishes from the users: Re-writeability is one of the options asked for. Also the fully automatic comparison of data without activity by the driver is seen as very important. The integration into IT systems, first of all MMS (Material Management System) followed by PPS (Production Planning Systems) and SCM (Supply Chain Management) systems are strongly requested. Against the background of these results it becomes clear that STILL is on exactly the right track with the use of RFID to trace the location of trucks.

DEVELOPMENT OF COMPONENTS WITH AN EAR ON THE MARKET

To complete the process the results obtained will be directly taken up by the work of the research project and will be presented to various customers - this allows to match the development of individual functions with the functions required by the market. Top goal for STILL is to develop components suitable for the market.

Beside STILL other partners are also active in equipping the vehicles such as Jungheinrich AG being a vehicle manufacturer and Kuka Roboter GmbH as a user. In addition Gebhardt Transport- und Lagersysteme as a maker of loading aids, PSI Logistics GmbH as an IT integrator and Deister Electronic GmbH as an RFID specialist are to be mentioned. On behalf of research the Transport- und Automatisierungstechnik (ITA, Garbsen) and the Institut für Fördertechnik und Logistik (IFT, Stuttgart) are partners in the pool. The project was hosted on behalf of the BMBF by the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK), member of the major research centres of the Helmholtz-Gesellschaft

In this project STILL sees a good opportunity to further push its development from a vehicle maker to a supplier for system solutions. At the same time the competitiveness of the German makers in this area is substantially strengthened and the active shaping of tomorrow's standards will allow STILL to extend its RFID system solutions already available today.