Yale Lift Truck Technologies announces that the Yale Relay automated lift truck platform has been recognized as the top Automated Guided Vehicle solution of 2025 by the SupplyTech Breakthrough Awards. The intuitive portal enables easy setup and on-the-fly changes without the need for custom coding, allowing warehouses to reduce their dependence on scarce warehouse and programming labor amid longstanding workforce challenges.

“While warehouse growth keeps accelerating, there just isn’t enough labor out there to help manage these facilities. But automation has been too complex and costly for many operations to effectively fill the gap,” says Brad Long, Global Activation Manager, Yale Lift Truck Technologies. “Yale Relay removes the barriers to entry for automation and makes it a realistic solution for more warehouses than ever before. We’d like to thank the SupplyTech Breakthrough organization for recognizing the significance of this all-new approach to automation.”

Yale Relay is the result of nearly a decade of customer-driven refinement, and addresses the complexity, reliability and cost challenges that most frequently pose roadblocks to automation adoption. The solution’s drag-and-drop portal allows warehouses to implement automated lift trucks in as little as one day, and changing a truck’s route is as simple as dragging and dropping waypoints on the interactive map – no coding required. Mapping the facility is as easy as driving the truck manually through the warehouse.

The portal provides warehouse managers cloud-based access that enables them to manage a fleet of automated lift trucks across multiple facilities. This also reduces the need for on-site interventions with remote monitoring and update capabilities. The platform is designed with the ability to integrate with other common warehouse systems like facility fire alarms, interactive input boxes, programmable logic controllers, warehouse management systems and more.

Many solutions from robotic forklift or autonomous mobile robot suppliers may involve warehouses managing against disjointed integration, service from multiple stakeholders or long waits for offshore support. Yale Relay users instead receive access to training, parts and maintenance from a single, local source – the Yale® dealer network.

Warehouses can also take advantage of a frictionless rental approach – a fast, hassle-free way to implement automation that rolls all costs into a single monthly fee instead of requiring a large investment up front. Software, hosting fees and ongoing platform improvements are included as part of these fees. This approach allows operations to simply pilot an automation program with one or two trucks and scale their program as business dictates.