Industrial IIOT “Smart Factory” Offers Advantages in Material Handling

Material handling is the backbone of manufacturing. Everything in manufacturing from production to distribution of a product gets moved around the factory floor. The process of material handling includes the movement, protection, storage and control of materials and products. Most of these processes are still performed with traditional automation, but this is changing rapidly as manufactures are adopting IIOT technology for a fully connected system.

Autoquip has been manufacturing material handling equipment for over 75 years by providing scissor lifts, dock lifts, freight lifts and work platforms to assist in material handling applications. What is new is the simplicity in which smart technology can be incorporated into our legacy equipment. Material handling equipment is made “smart” with the addition of sensors, controls, digital communication, and cloud-base software. These solutions offer a range of advantages that lead to a faster and more flexible production process, greater efficiencies, and reduction of downtime.

The Many Benefits of Smart Equipment In Your Factory

• Real-time notifications of equipment failure are alerted to operators through text or email, so quick actions can be taken to avoid equipment damage or downtime.
• Preventative maintenance can be managed by providing insights into the condition of your equipment and proactively managing maintenance/repairs to extend the life of service of your equipment.
• More uptime with increased transparency of the condition of your equipment minimizes the unexpected and gets your equipment back up and running.
• Data collection through the IIOT provides the ability to collect valuable information to help decision-makers make more informed decisions about their equipment and processes that can lead to long-term improvements and cost efficiencies.
• Increased production can be achieved by the information gathered and data analyzed to make improvements on the inefficiencies in the material handling processes.
• Status signals using sensors can transmit information that is critical to the material handling process such as load capacity. Those sensors transmit the information to control centers where operators can access and adjust as needed.
• Increased safety with IoT-enabled lift equipment that will alert operators to potential dangers, stopping the lift and avoiding worker injuries.
• Flexibility! Smart material handling equipment can easily integrate into already-connected systems for a total smart factory.

As you can see, there are many benefits where the IIOT smart factory can advance the practice of material handling. Integrating smart technology into your material handling equipment does not have to be complex. Autoquip offers smart solutions that are ready for the smart factory, including sensors, controls technology, communication platforms, and cloud-base software.

Contact us today to learn more.