How to Boost Labor Efficiency in Unloading and Warehouse Tasks

The MPE060-080VH end rider pallet truck from Yale® Materials Handling Corporation (Greenville, NC) uses comprehensive ergonomic, productivity-enhancing and maintenance-friendly features to address the labor challenges and cost pressures facing supply chains and help operations boost labor efficiency and increase throughput in order picking, unloading and other warehouse tasks. Its optional extended platform provides over 30 percent more usable foot space than leading competitors and the Ultra Cushion helps reduce shock and vibration, keeping operators comfortable and focused all shift long. The end rider’s Precision Pick feature enables precise bi-directional control of speed and coast functions at the press of a button, allowing operators to easily navigate between pick locations. “Order picking accounts for 50 percent to 75 percent of operating costs for the typical warehouse,” said Chris Murtha, a brand manager at Yale. “What’s more, operator productivity can decline by as much as 30 percent near the end of a shift. So we worked to address these pressures with this end rider. This truck is designed to keep total cost of operation to a minimum and packs a laundry list of features to keep operators focused and productive.”

This end rider is designed with extended service intervals of up to 1,000 hours – which reduces service requirements by as much as 50 percent. When service is necessary, the maintenance-friendly design offers quick, secure access to key components, enabling service tasks to be completed in reduced time. LED platform and fork lights can increase operator awareness and visibility in low light or congested areas, like dim storage aisles and dark trailers. This can help avoid unnecessary costs due to product and equipment damage. The end rider’s Smart Shift bundle enables shortcuts to improve operator efficiency: Operators can raise and lower forks with a single touch and use the cruise control system to relax over long hauls. The Smart Acceleration feature automatically selects two distinct acceleration profiles based on application, load and task, while Yale Smart Slow Down™ automatically reduces speed in cornering for improved stability.

Yale also offers an industry-first robotic reach truck: A dual-mode pantograph robotic lift truck capable of autonomously depositing and retrieving loads from locations as high as 30 ft and reaching into double-deep storage to handle critical storage and retrieval tasks. The high-lifting capability of this reach truck makes it an ideal fit for distribution centers facing a shrinking labor pool and pressure to maximize vertical storage space to accommodate inventory growth driven by e-commerce. The JBT-intelligent robotic reach truck uses a combination of sensors and 3D cameras for maximum precision and effectiveness at higher-level storage locations, capable of exceeding the productivity of operator-driven trucks. “This truck’s ability to go as high as 30 ft opens up a wide range of new tasks for automation, enabling operations to maximize utilization of robotic systems and achieve return on investment faster than ever,” noted Mick McCormick, the vice president of robotics and automation at Yale.

This line of dual-mode pantograph robotic reach trucks includes robotic tow tractor, end rider and counterbalanced stacker models, all of which are fully commercialized, available for purchase and deployed in the field for end users. These trucks use infrastructure-free navigation technology that requires no installation of wires, magnets or tape. Instead, they use existing structural features like walls, pillars or racking for navigation to enable easy route adjustment and faster startup at reduced cost compared to traditional automated guided vehicles. When necessary, operators can switch Dual-Mode robotic lift trucks to manual mode to handle excess volume or other unexpected demands. Local dealers provide service and support, just as they would standard lift trucks.

Yale Materials Handling Corporation, 1400 Sullivan Drive, Greenville, NC 27834, 800-233-9253, www.yale.com.