Digitally assisted forklifts brew up safer production facilities

Switzerland’s largest brewery Feldschlösschen in Rheinfelden is a busy place to be. The brewery produces and bottles dozens of beers as well as a variety of mineral waters and soft drinks—all moving in tandem across the production facility.

Between navigating seasonal fluctuations and this high level of throughput, maintaining a safe workplace on the production floor can be challenging. High volume beverage production often carries a greater risk of collisions and accidents as these unique conditions require employees doing foot work to be in close proximity to driving forklift trucks.

Feldschlösschen’s production facility at its headquarters in the Canton of Aargau has undergone continued expansion and modernization, and the production has spread across numerous warehouses, further complicating things. In the bottling plant and neighboring storage areas, pedestrians and forklifts work alongside each other; and these areas of limited visibility, such as thoroughfares and intersections, carry a much higher risk of accidents.

“Our fast-paced handling procedures mean that our forklifts and pedestrian employees are constantly on the go,” says Martin Waldmeier, warehouse manager at Feldschlösschen. “Although there have been no serious accidents so far, we wanted to take preventive action to give our team an even better level of protection.”

This action came in the implementation of ELOKON’s ELOshield assistance system in 2022, on top of safety measures already in place. In addition to enhancing overall safety on a daily basis, Feldschlösschen is confident these new safety measures will help maintain the company’s zero accidents strategy, which aims to reduce the yearly number of safety-related incidents to zero by 2030.

“Our goal was to exploit the latest technology to benefit from the most advanced factory logistics when it comes to safety. Together, with the forklift manufacturer Junhgheinrich, we chose to partner with ELOKON, as the company has a wealth of experience and technical expertise in the beverage sector.” - says Waldmeier.

As part of this implementation, 30 existing trucks were retrofitted with ELOKON’s ELOshield digital assistance system. Individual warehouse areas and the bottling facility were secured with ELOshieldZONE’s stationary antennas, which were mounted on the walls to define individual danger zones. If a forklift truck approaches these areas, its vehicle module triggers a warning signal.

In high risk areas with limited or poor visibility, such as the high-bay warehouse or the bottling plant in the basement, collisions are avoided by imposing a strict speed limit of 7 km/h, which is automatically actuated with ELOshieldSPEED.

“It was particularly important for us to reduce the speed of our vehicles in complex and critical situations,” said Waldmeier. “With some of our forklifts moving loads of up to 3.5 tons at peak times, this increases the risk of injury to our staff as well as the cost of damage to infrastructure.”

Personnel working in these high-risk zones are also supplied with portable personal transponders that they wear or carry. These modules emit acoustic or vibration warnings if a forklift or any other industrial vehicle is approaching. The warning zone can be configured to range from 1 to 15 meters.

“The assistance system has been a complete success,” says Waldmeier. “The entire team fully endorsed the project and now feels safer in their working environment.”