Ken Ehrman

ID Systems Inc is deploying its PowerFleet-brand vehicle management system (VMS) on more than 100 forklifts at the Ingolstadt, Germany flagship plant of Audi AG.

An operator can plug the wireless system into a customised cable on newly built Still, Linde and Jungheinrich forklifts and other equipment from Pefra AG, says Ken Ehrman, ID Systems founder and president. He notes that Audi is withholding the exact number of forklifts for competitive reasons.

"We believe this expansion reflects the significant value PowerFleet has for Audi in its efforts to make its materials handling operations safer, more cost-effective and more productive," says Peter Fausel, ID Systems executive vice president of sales.

ID Systems and Audi began collaborating in January 2009, started a pilot program in April, moved after due diligence to an initial order in October and agreed on a series of follow-on purchase orders in February. Audi is a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG.

"Audi requested that the forklift manufacturers put a custom cable on the trucks so our system plugs in," Ehrman says. "That makes installation easy and saves time."

Along with the VMS expansion, ID Systems will integrate Audi's existing SAP AG human resource management system with the PowerFleet database. The system will update vehicle access control parameters automatically with operator training profiles maintained in the SAP software.

The new Audi order continues ID Systems' success in outfitting forklifts. In March 2009, the firm reported on an order to implement its VMS on several hundred forklifts at the Vance, Alabama plant of Mercedes-Benz US International, a subsidiary of Daimler AG.

In addition, "our systems are on forklifts in every Ford (Motor Co) manufacturing plant" in the US, on 470 forklifts at the Lexington, Kentucky plant of Toyota (Motor Corp) and on forklifts at three plants of Nissan (Motor Co Ltd) in the US, Ehrman says.

"We opened a European office in Dusseldorf (Germany) two years ago," Ehrman says. "We are growing faster in Europe than in the US."
During 2009 globally, "we got a lot of new customers but no big orders," Ehrman reports. Publicly traded ID Systems is based in Hackensack.