AGVs, a new realism for 2000

Citation

(1999), "AGVs, a new realism for 2000", Assembly Automation, Vol. 19 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.1999.03319daf.006

AGVs, a new realism for 2000

Keywords AGV

Egemin is one of Europe's leading manufacturers of automatic guided vehicles and material handling equipment. Its experience dates back to the early days of AGVs in the 1970s and it now markets its unique E'GV vehicles and E'TRICC Windows software (Plate 6).

Plate 6 Automatic guided vehicles, like this E'GV from Egemin, are now being used as valuable tools for specific logistic tasks

Since the 1970s when the first real AGV installations saw the light of day, AGV technology has claimed a particular niche in the materials handling system market.

Since the introduction of the AGV, the number of system applications and the related number of AGV vehicles increased continuously until 1990. The AGV market became saturated, with potential suppliers offering more different technologies than the number of actual projects could support.

The increasing belief in the latest technology, and the never ending fantasy of the applications engineers, bred monstrous projects that were no longer led by the basics of logistic automation: What can it do for me? How much does it cost? What is my return? Suddenly it was fashionable to solve your materials handling problem with AGVs. Everybody had his own application, justified by the often unnecessary "need" for flexibility.

Parallel to this phenomenon, the major participants in this technology had been investing enormous amounts of money to keep up with or outpace each other, or be the first with the next feature.

Organisations could not afford to keep investing in an open ended future, especially when the AGV world had never known a stable phase of business, based upon proven technology and experience, and justified profit. It is, therefore, with no surprise that we saw the increasing disappearance of a significant number of important suppliers from the marketplace.

A few newcomers in the AGV field started in the 1990s but, of these, most claimed to be suppliers on the basis of a few installations rather than on a systematic approach.

Today we find the AGV systems market very different. No longer are they bought for what they are but as a valuable part of an integrated materials handling concept, justified by proven techniques and realistic payback periods.

Now successful manufacturers and key role players are companies that have invested in organisation and a systematic approach, rather than in vehicle construction and product standardisation.

In recent years the installations that have been commissioned average less than five vehicles each. And, of the 25 active European suppliers of AGVs, few would say business has been good. It is easy to understand why names disappear and profiles change.

At the last Hanover Fair it was notable how some strong companies appeared to have taken the forefront in the business while others, previously major players, were no longer actively offering systems.

Real logistic performance has overruled pure technical prestige and AGVs are no longer accepted as the solution without compromise. Today 60 per cent of the installations are integrated parts of larger systems, taking care of a particular function. Of the vehicles delivered today, 90 per cent are load carriers, mostly replacing repetitive fork truck operations.

On the whole, today's European AGV systems can typically be considered as follows: one to three vehicles, designed or adapted for a particular requirement, handling loads of 800mm x 1,200mm and weighing normally 1,000kg. The vehicles have on-board microprocessors and communicate with stationary industry standard PCs by full duplex links. Using in-floor wire guidance and hodometry, vehicles negotiate their way to interlink two or more functional areas.

Although this may look like disappointment for some of us, it is with great interest and a renewed optimism that we see realism overruling daydreams. AGV systems have generally become what they should be - valuable tools that can help us perform specific logistic tasks at a justifiable cost.

For further information, please contact: Geoff Bryant, Egemin UK Ltd, Burlington House, 369 Wellingborough Road, Northampton NN1 4EU. Tel: +44 (0) 1604 234994; Fax: +44 (0) 1604 234483.