JLT Mobile Computers, a developer of reliable computing solutions for demanding environments, has launched JLT Insights, a new data-driven software dashboard for industries with warehouses.

The customizable software solution enables warehouse and IT managers to monitor their vehicle-mount terminals (VMT) and gain greater operational insights. Based on various data points collected from within the IT device and its sensors, JLT Insights empowers customers to optimize the daily operations of their harsh work environments as well as their host vehicles.

These new capabilities are made possible thanks to information delivered by sensors embedded in the JLT6012 Series VMTs. As well as informing users of the health of their IT assets, accelerometers and other sensors within the VMTs can deliver information relating to forklift movement, speed, acceleration, impact, location, and time.

Access to this digital data opens huge possibilities for warehouse and IT managers to streamline and enhance their picking and logistic operations. By identifying bottlenecks, network connectivity issues, high-traffic areas, driving dynamics, accident-prone zones, and various IT health signals, uptime can be optimized, flow can be improved, and general operations enhanced with regards to both efficiency and safety.

Impacts are a fact of life in forklift operations. But when you combine impacts with location data, you can ascertain higher safety risk areas and/or physical bottlenecks within logistic operations. Combine impacts with time and JLT Insights users can identify shift patterns, while time and location will highlight overly long local dwell times or indicate heavy traffic areas.

According to Andreas Nivard, General Manager at JLT Software Solutions: “The JLT6012 Series VMTs from JLT Mobile Computers incorporate sensor technology similar to what you would find in a cellphone. By leveraging the data generated by these sensors, we are now delivering even more value-add features through software solutions.

“The real power behind JLT’s new hard- and software-combined approach,” he continues, “comes from using JLT Insights to combine and contextualize the data captured via the sensors. This data can then be compared before displaying the results in an easy-to-use and -understand digital dashboard, full of useful information for warehouse and IT managers.”

The software is configurable to the customer’s application. JLT engineers will help users to define which data is most useful to capture and formulate the queries which indicate the most relevant actionable information. The identified data points can be configured by JLT, local partners, or customers themselves to add the biggest operational value for continued improvement.

There are multiple possibilities for operational improvement, but the primary driver behind the dashboard’s development is to increase uptime, by highlighting and predicting issues before they occur. This gives companies the ability to develop and deliver remedies before these issues turn into far more costly downtime.

“The ability to spot problems before they result in downtime is a huge plus for us,” explains Fredrik Edvardsen, IT Manager at IV Produkt, a company based in Växjö, Sweden that develops and manufactures innovative solutions for air handling. “We now have proactive insights into many more operational features, including power supplies, disk space, forklift run times, and service intervals.”

JLT Insights is available today for new and existing users of JLT6012 Windows 10 VMTs on a per-month and device-cost basis. “The dashboard comes in two tiers,” Andreas explains. “The first gives all the essential information from the IT and dynamics sensors, including event-based notifications, while the next tier up adds statistics and allows users to write queries that can compare and action one dataset versus another.”

For new JLT6012 VMT buyers, the software will be preinstalled on the units. Existing owners can contact JLT via the website for downloading the software.

In addition to the JLT6012 unit, JLT Insights can be used with other Windows 10 VMTs from JLT, albeit with limited functionality because previous generations do not include built-in sensors. Support for the Android-based JLT6012A™ VMT is in development and will be released in the first half of next year. Many more features are on the roadmap, and JLT is accepting suggestions from its user base.

“We’ve worked closely with JLT in testing out the software and suggesting features as part of their pilot program,” says Martin Carlsson, Warehouse Manager at IV Produkt. “We feel like JLT has really listened to our needs and we now eagerly anticipate using JLT Insights over the next 6 months to make data-driven decisions to increase productivity in our warehouse.”