ID Systems Inc reports upcoming placement of wireless solutions for materials handling applications with operations of Ford, Caterpillar and a Raymond customer.

Ford Motor Co is expanding deployment of ID Systems' wireless Vehicle Management System (VMS) to industrial truck fleets at two manufacturing plants in the United Kingdom and a third facility in Romania. Previously, the system was implemented at Ford plants in Spain and Germany and all Ford manufacturing facilities in North America.

ID Systems' marketing partner, Wiese USA, has placed purchase orders for the PowerFleet VMS for deployment on fleets of industrial trucks at three US manufacturing plants of Caterpillar Inc.

Through a marketing agreement, Raymond Corp has placed purchase orders worth about USD1.1 million for PowerFleet VMS technology to be deployed enterprise-wide across the industrial truck fleets of a major North American provider of package delivery and logistics services.

"Our customers' industrial truck fleets are made up primarily of lift trucks, ranging from walkie-rider pallet jacks to reach trucks to sit-down forklifts," says Greg Smith, vice president of ID Systems. "In manufacturing environments, such as Ford's automotive and Cat's heavy vehicle plants, there are a preponderance of sit-down riders, both electric and IC, typically ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 pound capacity."

Smith notes that Ford Europe utilises primarily Jungheinrich lift trucks for which ID Systems has developed a custom cable.

"In the distribution environments that Raymond typically sells into, there is typically a broad mix of pallet jacks and narrow-aisle equipment, like reach trucks, order pickers, and turret trucks, covering a wide range of capacities," Smith observes.

Woodcliff Lake-based ID Systems has subsidiaries in Germany and the United Kingdom and is a provider of solutions for securing, controlling, tracking, and managing high-value enterprise assets, including vehicles, powered equipment, trailers, containers, baggage and cargo.