John Maguire

Demand for man-up turret trucks is likely to fall so dramatically that the technology could become obsolete in the next five years.

That is the view of John Maguire, sales and marketing director of very narrow aisle articulated forklift truck manufacturer, Flexi Narrow Aisle.

"Man-up turret trucks were developed in the late 1970s to do one thing - stack pallet loads at high lift heights in very narrow aisles," Maguire explains.

"With a man-up truck, the truck operator sits next to the fork carriage of the truck and is lifted to the level within the racking from where the pallet is to be picked or put away.

"Historically, this 'man-to-goods' process was considered essential when lifting at heights of over 9 m (29.5 ft.) because it gave the truck operator a clear view of the pallet handling process.

"At that time, the poor quality, reliability and high cost of black and white cathode ray tube CCTV screens and cameras meant leaving the man on the ground and stacking remotely was not a practical solution without introducing levels of remote automation that were not cost effective."

However, Maguire believes that as high definition CCTV camera systems, RFID and data scanning systems evolved, the man-up turret truck looks increasingly like "yesterday's technology".

"When forklift vision systems were first introduced, they were expensive and, frankly, didn't work particularly well. The technology was adopted from systems employed in military vehicles to withstand the vibration of a moving forklift, and the images seen in the cab were grainy, black and white and looked like a shot through a 'fish-eye' lens.

"But, today, top-quality high-definition vision systems which eliminate the need to run multiple cables through the mast are very economical to install.

"These CCTV systems are capable of giving the operator a high-definition view of his forks and the load at any height - something that people could only have dreamed of as recently as three years ago. As a result, many warehouse or distribution centre owners and managers are questioning the need to put a man in the air for applications where full pallet load are being picked."

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