Lift Truck Series: Top workflows for autonomous lift trucks

Autonomous lift trucks are ushering in a new way of thinking about workflows. Warehouses and manufacturing operations are looking for alternative solutions for moving goods throughout a facility to help meet productivity goals without having to increase labor count or costs.

This comes at a time where the technology that drives automated vehicles has also advanced to the point where organizations can supplement and maintain their workforce and allow for greater consistency, control and accuracy without being dependent on labor availability.

While automatic guided vehicles (AGV) have been around for a long time, their capabilities can be limited. Many AGVs rely on a fixed path to navigate, which is only useful in rigid, structured environments where everything is predictable.

Today, the trifecta of sensor technology, computing power and artificial intelligence (AI) make it possible for autonomous lift trucks to make decisions on their own and navigate dynamic environments alongside people.

“They can do more with less, so you can put more and more intelligence into the robot itself,” says Zachary Dydek, chief technology officer at Vecna Robotics. “It can process a large amount of data, and make decisions about: How much space do I have? Can I move to the left? Can I move to the right? How should I navigate this scenario?”

These advancements allow for new workflow possibilities in large, multi-shift operations where long-haul, back-and-forth movements are prevalent. Rather than adding headcount, these facilities are implementing automated lift trucks, which act as cobots working alongside their human counterparts.

“Most of our customers are really focused on the primary piece, which is around cost and basically what the robot can do,” says Dydek. “At some of our customer sites, we’re operating these robots for like $10 an hour. So, they can do a lot of the same work that people are doing—maybe they do it in a slightly different way—but it’s effectively a worker that’s doing that forklift job for $10 an hour.”

Big Joe Forklifts, which offers a semi-autonomous mobile robot (AMR), is seeing similar trends.

“If customers can keep their associates doing things that a robot can’t do at this point, that’s really an attractive thing to them,” says Nick Malewicki, general manager of the autonomous division at Big Joe. “Companies recognize that automation can significantly boost their operational efficiency and productivity. By implementing AMRs, they can increase output while optimizing material flow throughout their facilities. This approach delivers immediate cost savings by eliminating non-value-added travel time and allowing human operators to focus on tasks that require their specialized skills, rather than moving goods that robots can handle more efficiently.”

Long-haul movements

When it comes to warehousing, the most common use cases are related to whole pallet movements for transport, according to Jared Green, director of global sales, automation and emerging technologies at Crown Equipment Corp.

This includes workflows such as end-of-line or dock-to-rack/rack-to-dock, high bay rack storage and retrieval, as well as reserve stock for goods-to-person type systems.

“There are some solutions being used for pick to pallet, but those workflows are more commonly supported by AMRs versus automated lift trucks,” says Green.

Choosing between an AMR, automated forklift or even a manual operation solution, Green adds often comes down to the product types, pick densities and priorities.

Distance is another major consideration when implementing automation. Though manual forklift operators are generally able to outperform a robot or autonomous vehicle, the distance traveled to transport product flips the script.

“If the distance is really long; if I’m traveling half a mile or more then that starts to look more like a parody,” says Dydek.

Dock to stock, for example, where an operator is taking pallets from the loading dock to storage within the facility, often involves a significant distance of travel.

“Wherever that pallet needs to be stored might be in the other end of a million-square-foot warehouse,” explains Dydek.

The opposite workflow from racking to the dock provides the same use case, and combining the two offers an opportunity to interweave work and increase the amount of time you have a pallet on a truck.

Vecna’s operating system optimizes for these types of scenarios to avoid deadheading or wasted productivity.

“We’ll do maybe a pickup from the dock, take it to the to the racking somewhere, and there’ll be another pallet right nearby that we can pick up and take to an outbound dock,” says Dydek. “By doing that, you increase the amount of time that you have a pallet on the forks, which is value-added time.”

Big Joe’s Malewicki agrees, noting that this automation strategy enables forklift operators to concentrate on skilled tasks such as precisely placing stock in racking systems, organizing items in storage bins and accurately scanning inventory data into warehouse management systems (WMS) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms.

“Anytime that you have forklift operators driving with empty forks throughout a warehouse they’re performing non-value-added work; time that could be better spent on productive tasks,” he says. “Automating unnecessary travel allows forklift operators to focus on the skilled tasks, keeping them in zones where their skills contribute most to throughput and operational effectiveness.”

Malewicki also notes that the human element in this particular workflow is critical for quality assurance.

“Robots lack the visual assessment capabilities that humans possess,” he explains. “They can’t evaluate a pallet and determine whether damage makes it unsafe to transport. Human operators excel at this quality control, and they can quickly identify damaged cases, compromised packaging, or structural issues that require attention before automated transport begins.”

The second part of this, Malewicki says, is that the inconsistent pallet quality in North America is common, so having a human operator inspect each pallet before an autonomous forklift handles them ensures the goods are stable and avoids further damage.

Line replenishment and pick-to-pallet

Overall, automated forklifts excel at moving product from point A to point B. This includes moving goods from the warehouse to production lines and then moving finished products back to a warehouse to be packaged, put away into inventory or picked on mixed pallets.

Having a dual-purpose forklift that can operate both manually and autonomously can be beneficial in these workflows, where picking is largely still done by human operators.

Big Joe’s semi-autonomous solution, which they describe as an automated walkie rider pallet truck, allows for this type of application. Malewicki gives an example of a customer who manually picks and then sends pallets autonomously to their stretch wrapper and then on to an outbound staging dock for shipment.

“That operator stays in their work area instead of driving across the facility to the stretch wrapper then to the outbound,” says Malewicki. “We keep operators doing productive tasks while robots handle the non-value-added travel.”

Big Joe is already seeing real ROI from autonomous lift truck workflows, with one manufacturing customer increasing productivity by 30% while keeping their head count neutral.

“They were actually able to increase their productivity with more goods out the door daily just by eliminating unnecessary movement,” says Malewicki. “When workers don’t have to walk between stations, they can focus on value-added activities like running manufacturing lines, packing goods, conducting quality inspections or receiving goods into a WMS or ERP system.

“These are all value-added activities directly benefiting the operation and their end customers, whereas transporting goods from one station or area of a warehouse to another provides no inherent value to the operation,” he adds.

Another example are automotive manufacturers who use autonomous forklifts in line replenishment type workflows. Automakers already automate the majority of the car manufacturing process, with manual forklift operators delivering the materials as they are needed in the assembly line.

“That last bit of automation for the big auto manufacturers is, ‘How do you keep the assembly line fed with all the materials it needs?’” says Dydek. “That’s one area where automated forklifts can provide a lot of value, with timely delivery of the materials that you need to keep the manufacturing line running.”

Why automate?

At Big Joe, Malewicki says they really try to understand why customers want to automate when they are looking at solutions. This begins with asking questions like: What are you trying to solve for?

“Are you trying to solve for that non-value-added travel? Are you looking to eliminate headcounts? Are you trying to augment labor because you can’t hire people to do this job? What is it that you want to automate?” asks Malewicki.

From there, they move on to accessing their facility, considering things like building size, the types of goods being transported, or floor condition.

“We like going to the customer site to really get eyes on it and spend some time to understand where they are in their automation journey, but then also to understand their facility,” says Malewicki. “Being there, being able to see it firsthand, we can make recommendations on whether or not our solution is going to work successfully.”

Beyond optimized workflows, Crown’s Green says automated lift trucks are also helping facilities control and predict operating expenses, control energy usage, enhance accuracy of load movements and improve safety performance.

“With the right automated system design and application, automated OEM lift trucks can leverage the operational characteristics of manually operated vehicle designs to improve performance,” Green adds.

Industry 5.0 is here

When you look at the workflows autonomous forklifts are best suited for, it’s clear that they are not here to replace skilled labor, but rather to enhance human skills.

Autonomous forklifts lend themselves well to this next wave in automation, sometimes referred to as Industry 5.0, which looks at how technology can empower human decision making while leveraging robotics—not on achieving full autonomy.

“It’s about collaboration,” says Malewicki. “Autonomous forklifts working alongside people, giving operators the opportunity to focus on tasks that require judgment or problem-solving, which are things robots simply aren’t good at. The aim is to enhance human capabilities, not replace them.”

Dydek envisions a future for automated lift trucks that is not dissimilar to the current landscape of manually operated vehicles, which offers a range of specialized equipment like reach trucks and pallet jacks.

“They do different things, and they need to be different, and I envision that as well with robotics,” he says. “My view is that there are always going to be certain systems that specialize in certain areas and do really well in certain workflows or in certain environments.”