GREENVILLE, N.C. (April 26, 2023) – Yale Lift Truck Technologies announces the latest recognition of the company’s first-of-its-kind operator assistance system, Yale Reliant™, taking home the silver trophy from the 2023 Edison Awards. The Edison Awards honor some of the most innovative products and business leaders in the world, placing Yale among previous winners such as 3M, Abbott, IBM, Dow Chemical and Under Armour.
Yale Reliant is emblematic of the company’s demonstrated strengths in developing industry-leading lift truck technology. The solution also reflects the company’s laser focus on addressing the toughest labor, safety and productivity challenges of today’s warehouses, which face annual employee turnover rates that have hovered at nearly 50% in recent years, and a global workforce shortage expected to reach 85 million people by 2030. The award-winning operator assist technology was developed to help support a customer’s warehouse lift truck safety initiative, and is the result of an investment of more than 40,000 hours of research and development.
“With OSHA estimating that nearly 100,000 injuries involving forklifts occur annually, warehouses are constantly looking for tools that can help support safety efforts, especially as employee turnover and inexperienced operators exacerbate the risk of safety incidents and threats to productivity,” says Brad Long, Brand Manager, Yale Lift Truck Technologies. “With honors like this from industry observers and strong traction in real-world applications, the response to Yale Reliant is proof positive that operations are hungry for modern lift truck solutions that put technology to work to tackle their toughest challenges.”
The Yale Reliant solution uses multiple detection technologies to monitor the surrounding environment and the status of the lift truck and load. Where other approaches provide audible alerts, which can get lost in the din of a busy warehouse environment, Yale Reliant automatically adjusts lift truck performance so that operators are alerted by feeling the truck respond, helping reinforce best practices to support truck stability. The system constantly monitors truck and load status to prioritize stability as it implements hydraulic and traction controls. In practice, Yale Reliant can provide warnings and assist with operator awareness by proactively reducing truck speed if it detects something in the monitored area, such as obstacles, other trucks or pedestrians.
The win comes on the heels of heavily-attended demonstrations of the technology at ProMat, the material handling industry’s largest trade show in North America, and Yale expanding availability of the solution to 13 additional lift truck models.
The expansion to a total of 18 lift truck models addresses the needs of warehouses continuing to scale up to meet growing e-commerce demand with a labor pool characterized by high turnover. The solution is already commercially deployed on 4,750 lift truck units. In addition to operator assistance solutions, Yale has an established record of bringing technology to market quickly, including commercial deployment of hundreds of robotic lift trucks and advanced electric power options.
Yale Reliant has also been recognized as a Reader’s Choice Product of the Year by Material Handling Product News and the solution helped propel Yale to being named a Top Software and Technology Provider by Food Logistics.
ABOUT THE AWARD
The prestigious Edison Awards, named after the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison, honor excellence in new product and service development, marketing, design and innovation. All nominations were reviewed by the Edison Awards Steering Committee with the final ballot being determined by an independent judging panel. The panel was comprised of more than 3,000 senior business executives and academics from the fields of product development, design, engineering, science, marketing and education, as well as past winners. Gold, Silver and Bronze winners were announced at the Edison Awards Gala on Thursday, April 20, 2023 in Fort Myers, FL.
ABOUT YALE LIFT TRUCK TECHNOLOGIES
Yale Lift Truck Technologies leverages over a century of material handling experience and substantial investment in innovation to bring the most advanced technology-driven lift truck solutions to market. The company offers a full line of award-winning lift trucks, including reach trucks, order pickers, turret trucks, pallet jacks and trucks, pallet stackers, tow tractors and counterbalanced forklifts, as well as powerful operator assist solutions, proven robotics and a wide range of power sources to help customers adapt to today’s demanding supply chain. Yale and its independent dealer network support these solutions with comprehensive after-sales service, parts, financing and training.
Hyster-Yale Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. (NYSE:HY) which is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio and operates globally.
© 2023 Hyster-Yale Group, Inc., all rights reserved. YALE is a trademark of Hyster-Yale Group, Inc.
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