While automation and energy efficiency were big trends at the three-day LogiMAT trade show in Germany, safety was also a major feature of many exhibits.

More than 67,000 industry professionals attended LogiMAT from March 19 to 21 to view and meet with the show’s 1,610 exhibitors under the theme “Shaping Change Together: Sustainability, AI, Ergonomics”.

As was apparent at the North American trade show MODEX in Atlanta a week earlier, LogiMAT exhibitors were focused on offering solutions to the ongoing shortage of skilled labour in the materials handling sector.

Automation has been hyped as the key solution to the skills shortage for some time. Most employers still need some human workers, however, and they need to keep them safe whether they’re working with traditional materials handling equipment or alongside automated equipment.

Jungheinrich, which had the biggest booth at LogiMAT with a 1,200 sqm space and 240 staff, unveiled a new range of EJC 1i electric pedestrian stackers as well as a new ETV 2i reach truck series.

Christian Erlach, the company’s board member for sales, says safety played a key role in the development of the ETV 2i series.

The compact design and low battery height gives the forklift operators improved all-round visibility, minimising the risk of accidents.

The ETV 2i models also have an optional Floor Spot system, which can be integrated into the overhead guard to further improve visibility.

A new safety feature called SmartStripe is also available, which has functions such as daytime running lights, indicators and brake lights.

Irish forklift maker Combilift also ensured maximum operator visibility in the design of the multidirectional Combi-CB70E counterbalance forklift launched at LogiMAT.

The Combilift booth featured the products launched last year to mark the company’s 25 years in business, the Combi-AGT autonomous guided forklift, the giant Combi-LC and telematic software product Combi-Connect.

All the machinery was decked out in the new company colour scheme of high-vis green.

Company co-founder and chief executive Martin McVicar, fresh from trade shows in India, Brazil and the US, says the new indoor-outdoor Combi-CB70E is the shortest 7 T counterbalance truck on the market.

Features designed with the operator in mind include a gas strut suspension cab, all-round visibility, a tilting steering column, hydraulic steering and a comfortable auto-swivel seat.

“It comes with a built-in 15 degree seat swivel so when the operator goes to move to the right, the seat swivels 15 degrees to the right to aid with visibility,” McVicar explains.

“When going in reverse, the seat turns 15 degrees to the right so it’s easier to look over your shoulder.”

McVicar says the Combi-CB70E is ideal for safely handling long and bulky loads, especially in timber yards.

Yale engineers chose to address the industry’s skills shortage and safety challenges with technology designed to train inexperienced forklift operators while they operate the equipment. 

Yale vice president of marketing and solutions for Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA), Robert O’Donoghue, says the Yale Reliant system is a solution for companies who can’t find enough experienced forklift drivers to maintain their business. 

Rather than letting inexperienced drivers operate the equipment without oversight, potentially putting themselves and their colleagues in danger, the system reinforces forklift best practice by limiting the equipment’s performance in potentially dangerous situations. 

“What Yale Reliant is all about is trying to quickly convert them into experienced drivers and highlight when there’s bad practice,” O’Donoghue says.

“If they’re driving with the forks tilted down or they’re driving with the forks in the air, that bad practice will slow them right down very very quickly.”

The Yale Reliant system continuously measures the combined centre of gravity of the forklift and its load.

When a potential risk is detected, it determines the appropriate degree of performance adjustment to respond with, taking into account the forklift speed, acceleration, travel direction, steering angle, mast tilt and load weight, height and position. 

Once the bad practice is corrected or the hazard or pedestrian has moved out of the danger zone, the operator regains full control over the forklift.

Kion Group’s Linde Material Handling launched several new products at LogiMAT, including the L-MATIC HD k automated pallet stacker and the L-MATIC C automatic compact stacker.

Ulrike Just, executive vice president sales and service Linde Material Handling EMEA, says the non-hybrid L-MATIC C is still in the project stage and expected to come to market late this year or early next year.

“It’s non-hybrid in that it’s purely automated,” Just says. “This gives us a more compact format because there is no seat. I think it’s the only one of its kind that can lift 1.2 T in an automated fashion.”

The compact design makes the L-MATIC C is ideal for brownfield automation because it can navigate tight spaces and narrow aisles. 

The new L-MATIC HD k automated pallet stacker, meanwhile, can move goods weighing up to 1.6 T between conveyor belts, frames, marked floor areas or rack locations and store and retrieve them at heights of up to 3.8 m.

The pallet stacker has a range of 360-degree safety scanners and load sensors and can travel at speeds of up to 7.2 km/h. It meets the technical safety requirements of the European ISO 3691-4 standard for driverless industrial trucks. 

The pallet stacker can be optionally equipped with features such as the Linde BlueSpot, warning lights, a second load sensor and additional obstacle detection.

Just says safety is at the heart of all Linde products.

"We’re really designing the trucks around the drivers and their wellbing and maintaining their productivity during the work day," she says.

Safety products in the Linde range include the Linde Safety Guard which warns pediestrians and operators of hazards, as well as reverse assist cameras and radar.

On the Vetter booth, the German fork-maker showcased the safety features of its forks, including the well-known SmartFork product. 

The latest upgrade of the SmartFork includes a pedestrian identification system.

“It identifies people in a risk area when the forklift approaches and this is integrated in our cameras in the fork itself,” says chief executive officer Arnold Vetter.

Also on display on the Vetter stand were AGV-ready forks, with a variety of sensors, including overload detection. 

“If you have an AGV and there’s no driver, and you have an overload, there has to be a warning so the machine stops automatically,” Vetter says.

LogiMAT 2024 fun facts

• Exhibitors came from 40 countries to present their latest innovations and solutions.
• The exhibit area was 125,000 sqm across all 10 halls of the Messe Stuttgart convention centre. 
• Some 150 companies exhibited at LogiMAT for the first time. 
• About 100 new and never-before-exhibited products were on display.
• About 35% of exhibitors were from outside Germany, including 86 from overseas locations including China, North America and Australia. 
• Industry professionals accounted for 98.8% of attendees.
• Data collected by independent market research institute Wissler & Partner from Basel found that 41% percent of industry professionals travelled more than 300 km to be in Stuttgart. One in four came from abroad, with more than half of that number coming from Asia, the Americas or Africa.
• Broken down by sector, 52% of visitors came from industry and 16% from wholesale and retail. 
• The majority of industry professionals (57%) were senior managers who came to get a picture of the intralogistics solutions currently available and compare offerings directly. 
• Meanwhile, 38% of visitors came with specific investment projects in mind, while 24% percent of the visiting industry professionals awarded a contract during the show or plan to do so immediately afterward.

For more LogiMAT reporting, including more product launches, read our second report here. See other event highlights in our LogiMAT Gallery.