Mitsubishi Logisnext demonstates automated truck loading

• Utilization of Automated Guided Vehicle Technology to Support Response to Regulatory Changes in the Logistics Industry in 2024
• Logistics services provider Konoike Transport to begin full-scale operation for loading trucks this month
  
• System addresses issues such as the shortage of forklift operators and reducing truck dwell time
  

Mitsubishi Logisnext Co., Ltd., a part of MHI Group, demonstrated loading trucks with automated guided forklifts (AGFs). This demonstration was joined with logistics services provider Konoike Transport Co., Ltd., who began utilizing the system for actual business operations in Japan this month.

Loading work for trucks requires adjustments to loading positions according to the type of truck and its parked location, unlike cargo handling with fixed equipment such as the shelves and conveyors inside logistics centers. In addition, loading work is currently conducted mainly with manned forklifts because of the need to minimize the turnaround time for trucks.

Mitsubishi Logisnext has developed new technologies related to control and sensing to address such issues, and has built an automated system that uses two AGFs to load any truck parked in a designated space. With this system the AGFs make their own determinations for optimal operations according to the varying loading position, allowing trucks to be loaded with a comparable accuracy and pace as manually operated forklifts. Under the loading conditions in the demonstration, a large truck can be loaded in less than 15 minutes. Mitsubishi Logisnext will continue to make improvements and add functions based on the knowledge gained from actual operation at Konoike Transport, and enhance the system's capabilities.

Going forward, Mitsubishi Logisnext will continue to develop products that leverage technological expertise and provide solutions to address issues facing the logistics industry, most notably the regulatory changes that will limit truck drivers' overtime from April 2024.