Automotive supplier optimises its industrial truck fleet with the iFD Forklift Control System

For over 55 years, our new client has been developing and manufacturing innovative brake, chassis and drivetrain components for companies in the automotive industry. In recent years, the company has steadily established itself as a major player in the global metal forming sector. In light of the digital transformation and to ensure production quality continues to be maintained, iFD GmbH was commissioned to implement a forklift dispatch system.

There is currently no system in place to manage the forklift fleet – instead, logistics staff organise themselves independently and select transport orders based on experience and intuition. However, this leads to a high proportion of empty runs and search journeys, which are set to be significantly reduced with the introduction of the forklift control system.

With the iFD Forklift Control System, all transport activities are digitally recorded and efficiently processed using intelligent optimisation algorithms. The system calculates the optimal transport order for the forklift driver in real time. The allocation of transport orders to the forklifts is carried out entirely digitally and paperlessly.

In addition to taking distances into account when prioritising orders, the iFD Forklift Control System also checks essential quality criteria, such as target times, source/destination utilisation or the age of the order. Priorities can also be freely assigned. Transport processing thus takes place not only at the lowest possible cost, but also to the highest standard.

The range of functions available to the customer includes manual and automatic order creation via the SAP integration, empty container transport, pick-up transport, time-controlled creation of transport orders, and the requisitioning of tools from the high-bay warehouse.

In summary, the iFD Forklift Control System delivers a wide range of benefits:

• Reduced need for material handling vehicles through increased productivity
• Significant reduction in intralogistics costs
• Improved utilisation / even distribution of the order load across all forklifts
• Future-proofing through a modern framework
• Optimised and prioritised processing of transport tasks
• Increased process reliability and flexibility
• Transparency and traceability of internal transport

We are delighted about the new project and the collaborative partnership.