Where’s the Material Handling Growth During Inflationary Times?
How is inflation on forklifts affecting the material handling industry? Bloomberg reported July 21, 2022 on Fact.MR’s press release. Fact.MR is an independent pure play, focuses on a single line of business, market intelligence firm that provides actionable insights. In the press release, Fact.MR reported on how the “Expansion of the e-commerce sector worldwide is set to surge the number of warehouses and further drive the need to efficiently manage the entire supply chain.” How will inflation on forklifts be affected?
The Growth of Warehouses in eCommerce
This should come as no surprise as according to Construction Dive, January 20, 2022, “Major transportation corridors near large metropolitan areas such as San Francisco, Dallas, New York, Seattle, Miami, Houston and Chicago continue to be hot markets for the distribution and warehouse space.” They also believe that, “Proximity to ports, airports and trucking facilities are also underlying factors for determining where warehouse distribution facilities demand will continue to grow.”
How Does this Affect Inflation on Forklifts?
In order to manage the rising costs, Fact.MR reports that “warehouse owners are expected to focus on enhancing productivity, lowering operational costs and increasing transparency within their operational plants and warehouses.” This is a statement that SIERA.AI receives from companies every day. However, owners need to continue to make the transition to digital as well as implement forklift pedestrian safety systems in order to help keep the company on track with productivity, and controlling operational costs.
Digital Transformation
Digital transformation has slowly made its way through the warehouse and distribution centers. However, not as quickly as in manufacturing. For e-commerce to streamline and control costs such as OSHA fines due to non-compliance and forklift accidents or downtime due to lack of accurate maintenance management, transitioning to an electronic forklift checklist with a graphical telemetry Dashboard can help management reach their goals.
SIERA.AI’s S2 Digital Inspection with Impact Detection continues to be adopted and implemented in many facilities in the U.S. and worldwide. Why? Cost, simplicity, control and critical data. We’ve written extensively on these subjects, so here are a few articles for you to refer to:
Forklift Pedestrian Detection
Those facilities who have experienced a forklift fatality or a severe injury can understand the hard costs and soft costs of a forklift accident either with a pedestrian, another piece of equipment, or the facility itself. The costs are initial and can linger for months or even years. However, if the facility has been fortunate to not have a severe enough of an accident, management rolls the dice. However, if management wants to increase productivity and lower costs, this one could be a bit trickier.
Most forklift pedestrian detection systems require a guide on the floor or some type of technology such as RFID. These technologies slow down productivity and frustrate the forklift operators as they are bound to fulfilling a quota.
By using the S3 Pedestrian Detection System or S3 PDS, productivity and safety meet as one. Productivity doesn’t stop just because a forklift safety system is installed. The use of AI technology keeps productivity high, and helps to edge it up a bit as well. Safety is critical because an accident can cost in hard dollars as well as soft. Again, we’ve written extensively about these issues, take a look:
Summary
As Fact.MR predicts that “sales of lift trucks are likely to surge at a CAGR of 6.9% from 2022 to 2032 on the back of increasing demand for warehousing,” management needs to prepare with technology to ensure maximum productivity and low cost of forklift damage or accidents. Adopting technology from SIERA.AI can help reach management’s goals. Contact us today to get started with a demo at sales@siera.ai.
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