Vestas optimizes the use of their fork and scissor lift fleet

Vestas is the energy industry’s global partner on sustainable energy solutions. They design, manufacture, install, and service wind turbines across the globe, and with more than 132 GW of wind turbines in 83 countries.

Vestas uses the Sensolus battery-powered trackers for tracking their forklifts and scissor lifts used in the production of turbines indoors. In this customer story, Kemal explains how the utilization data provided by Sensolus, results in an optimal use of their fleet and a decrease in general costs.

“Actually, there was no logging at all” Kemal explains. He always wondered how often and how long their fleet is used, but they had no way of recording this.

The main reason he wanted to know this is to evaluate the fleet efficiency. Detecting unused assets allows them to discard the unnecessary ones and therefore eliminate all the extra costs that come along with that.

How efficient are the flows inside the facility? Can the assets allocation be optimized? Can the production cycle be faster with the exact same fleet?

By using Sensolus, Vestas is now able to detect under- and overused forklifts and scissor lifts. This results in an optimized allocation of the fleet. Re-assigning unused and underused assets takes back the pressure from the overused ones, makes the process flows more efficient and therefore they can produce more turbines with the exact same fleet.

Kemal found us through a comparative research on the internet. “I saw several companies but yours was more attractive and mature” Kemal explains. He directly asked for a demo and tried some of our trackers to evaluate the robustness, simplicity, and efficiency of our devices.  

In order to implement our solution, Kemal had to create a solid business case to get internal approval. “The tracker really worked fine. And we realized part of our assets were underused. This means there is room for improvement to, increase the efficiency” Kemal adds. The testing and the research he has done showed that using Sensolus for tracking their fleet will impact positively the usage and the efficiency.

Besides the solution itself, they received thorough support from our sales and support team. “Thanks to your sales team and support team, they assisted me a lot. They were always quick to respond.” Kemal explains.

At the moment, Vestas are tracking their assets at one facility in Denmark. But the plan is to expand the implementation to their other sites in Denmark, UK and other locations.

“After we started to use Sensolus, we saw it is user-friendly and easy to implement. You just need a cable tie and a magnet to activate” Kemal explains.

Besides the positive impact Sensolus has on their fleet efficiency, the simplicity and the easy implementation of our solution are crucial for the expansion Vestas is planning for their other facilities.

By monitoring the orientation of the trackers, Vestas is now able to detect if the scissor lifts are in an upward position, and therefore being used. While for the forklifts, having full visibility on their routes and journeys allows them to monitor the operating hours. They can discard, re-assign or decrease the usage of an asset thanks to the collected data.  

From a broader perspective, Vestas looks at Sensolus as a way of minimizing their impact on our environment. “If you reduce the fleet rent, you will reduce the carbon emissions in general. This is one of the key purposes in this business” Kemal explains.

Vestas now has full visibility on their fleet utilization. This allows them to optimize their asset allocation, eliminate unnecessary costs and improve their process flows.