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Dive Brief:
- ArcBest on Tuesday released a line of automated forklift trucks and trucks for use in customer distribution centers and manufacturing facilities.
- The technology, known as Vaux Smart Autonomy, integrates and builds on ArcBest’s Vaux Freight Movement System, a change from traditional warehouse operations that allows trailers to be unloads in seconds.
- “It’s really more than just forklifts,” ArcBest President, President and CEO Judy McReynolds told Trucking Dive in an interview. “You need those combined with intelligent software and then remote control capabilities that are remote.”
Dive Insight:
The Cargo Handling System uses a platform on the floor of the trailer that can be removed, allowing the entire trailer to be unloaded at once. Then, when the load on the remote platform is on the warehouse floor, the forklifts can swarm it at the same time, rather than each waiting their turn to unload the trailer.
The system’s software precisely locates the positions of loads within a trailer.
ArcBest sees autonomous dock equipment as another step in maximizing performance for its customers.
Automated forklifts can also be controlled manually on site or remotely by human operators, a combination of capabilities that the CEO said is key to scaling autonomous technology. ArcBest has been piloting the equipment with retailers and manufacturers, including automakers, McReynolds said.
“You can imagine a human being involved … in a portion of a forklift’s movements, but then the rest operating autonomously,” McReynolds said in the interview. “We’re hearing a lot of positive feedback about how flexible this is and how it’s an easier transition to implement.”
The Vaux 5K Counterbalance Forklift has a capacity of 5,000 pounds, a maximum speed of 7.4 mph, a maximum height of 18 feet and a height of 23 feet, requiring a minimum of 12.5 feet of runway space. For tighter spaces, the Narrow Aisle Reach Truck has a capacity of 4,000 or 4,5000 pounds, a maximum speed of 7.5 mph, a maximum height of 26 or 40 feet, and requires just 9.5 feet of aisle space.
“Because of how flexible it is and how it can be connected to warehouse management systems, it’s really effective in dealing with the kind of variety or variability that you can have with facilities or processes, or even product characteristics in those warehouses,” said McReynolds. .