A LOAD MONITORING AND INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR USE WITH A LOAD CONVEYOR

摘要

A load monitoring system for use with a load conveyor (1) such as a lifting assembly of a forklift truck or other mobile load handler. The conveyor has a load support (3) for supporting a load to be conveyed and a load-bearing chain or cable (6). A load transducer (5) is attached to the load conveyor and generates an output signal representative of the load applied to the chain at any particular point in time. From the output signal the time during which the element has been used in a particular load range is determined as well as the remaining service life of the element. The load data may be collected and processed locally or may be transmitted to a remote computer (21) or hand-held device (22) for analysis. The mobile load handler may also have a data reader (26) so that that it may be used in inventory management in which a plurality of loads each labelled with load identification data (40) are moved between a plurality of storage zones (42) each labelled with location identification data by the handler. A data storage device (30) stores and processes the data so as to provide a log of the movement of a given load by the mobile load handler.