A standards organisation has approved a revised guide to safety requirements for system suppliers of driverless automatic guided industrial vehicles and the automated functions of manned industrial vehicles.

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved the guide on March 1, 2012, after going through its canvass vetting method.

The standard becomes valid on March 1, 2013 and has implications for system suppliers, manufacturers, purchasers and users involved in the design, construction, application, operation and maintenance of the vehicles.

The standard - ANSI/ITSDF B56.5-2012 - is available without charge through the website of the Industrial Truck Standards Development Foundation (ITSDF).

Both the institute and foundation are based in Washington.

"The revised standard means a lot to the industry and allows us to keep up as technology evolves," says Dick Ward, chairman of the ITSDF B56.5 subcommittee. "For quite a while, the technology evolved slowly, but once computers hit the marketplace, it has been changing fairly rapidly across the board."

Ward is retired from Material Handling Industry of America where he was executive vice president.

"The committee is constantly looking for updates to the standard," says Mats Herrstromer, subcommittee vice chairman and global product manager for automatic guided vehicle systems in Charlotte, North Carolina with the North American unit of Dematic Group Sàrl. "The old B56.5 was from 2004/2005. We are on a five-year renewal schedule. However, we can make changes earlier should we see a need."

ITSDF was incorporated in late 2004 to assume management of standards affecting products used in the materials handling market. Earlier, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers developed those standards for ANSI consideration.

The automatic guided vehicle systems industry group of the Charlotte-based MHIA announced release of the ANSI/ITSDF B56.5-2012 standard in a June 22 communication. The industry group's members include major suppliers of automatic guided vehicle systems. They provide equipment worldwide for use in virtually every major manufacturing and distribution sector.