Swedish firm JLT Mobile Computers is improving efficiency for warehouse forklift fleets with a dashboard that contextualises data from onboard sensors in vehicle-mount terminals to create a snapshot of vehicle operations.

Called JLT Insights, the data-driven software dashboard lets warehouse and IT managers monitor their vehicle-mount terminals (VMT) and gain operational insights. Based on various data-points collected from within the IT device and its sensors, it can help optimise the daily operations of harsh work environments as well as host vehicles.

These capabilities are made possible thanks to information delivered by sensors embedded in the JLT6012 VMTs. As well as informing users of the health of their IT assets, accelerometers and other sensors within the VMTs can deliver information relating to forklift movement, speed, acceleration, impact, location and time.

Access to these digital data opens possibilities for warehouse and IT managers to streamline and enhance their picking and logistic operations. By identifying bottlenecks, network connectivity issues, high-traffic areas, driving dynamics, accident-prone zones, and various IT health signals, uptime can be optimised, flow can be improved, and general operations enhanced with regards to efficiency and safety.

Impacts are a fact of life in forklift operations, but when combined with location data, users can ascertain higher safety risk areas or physical bottlenecks within logistic operations. Combine impacts with time, and Insights users can identify shift patterns, while time and location will highlight overly long local dwell times or indicate heavy traffic areas.

“The JLT6012 VMTs from JLT Mobile Computers incorporate sensor technology similar to what you would find in a cell phone,” said Andreas Nivard, JLT general manager. “By leveraging the data generated by these sensors, we are now delivering even more value-add features through software. The real power behind JLT’s new hard- and software combined approach comes from using JLT Insights to combine and contextualise the data captured via the sensors. These data can then be compared before displaying the results in an easy to use and understand digital dashboard, full of useful information for warehouse and IT managers.”

The software is configurable to the user’s application. JLT engineers can help users define which data are most useful to capture and formulate the queries that indicate the most relevant actionable information. The identified data points can be configured by JLT, local partners or users themselves to add the biggest operational value for continued improvement.

There are multiple possibilities for operational improvement, but the primary driver behind the dashboard’s development is to increase uptime by highlighting and predicting issues before they occur. This gives companies the ability to develop and deliver remedies before these issues turn into far more costly downtime.

“The ability to spot problems before they result in downtime is a huge plus for us,” said Fredrik Edvardsen, IT manager at IV Produkt, a company based in Växjö, Sweden, that develops and manufactures innovations for air handling. “We now have proactive insights into many more operational features, including power supplies, disk space, forklift run times and service intervals.”

JLT Insights is available for new and existing users of JLT6012 Windows 10 VMTs on a per month and device cost basis.

“The dashboard comes in two tiers,” Nivard said. “The first gives all the essential information from the IT and dynamics sensors, including event-based notifications, while the next tier up adds statistics and allows users to write queries that can compare and action one dataset versus another.”

For new JLT6012 VMT buyers, the software will be preinstalled on the units. Existing owners can contact JLT to download the software.

In addition to the JLT6012 unit, JLT Insights can be used with other Windows 10 VMTs from JLT, albeit with limited functionality because previous generations do not include the built-in sensors. Support for the Android-based JLT6012A VMT is in development and will be released in the first half of next year. More features are on the roadmap, and JLT is accepting suggestions from its user base.

“We’ve worked closely with JLT in testing out the software and suggesting features as part of their pilot programme,” said Martin Carlsson, warehouse manager at IV Produkt. “We feel like JLT has really listened to our needs and we now eagerly anticipate using JLT Insights over the next six months to make data-driven decisions to increase productivity in our warehouse.”