scope:

This guideline primarily addresses investment planners in a company. It provides them with a tool enabling a holistic view of the AGVS, a means of organisation and interlinking system. This tool serves to compare and evaluate various handling system alternatives. The methods proposed in this guideline are particularly appropriate for investment objects featuring high costs of acquisition, long service life, and many characteristics which are not, or hardly, quantifiable in terms of money. However, technically simple alternatives, e. g. a handling system based on forklift trucks, or other automated handling system alternatives, e. g. an electrified monorail system (EMS) can also be included in the comparison. The methods described below allow to take into account the decision- makers' preferences. The cost-efficiency analysis remains transparent and traceable at all times. Special emphasis was put on high practicability of the cost-efficiency analysis. The guideline is supplemented by the MS-Excel® based PC software program "Software-Tool zur Nutzwertanalyse und Wirtschaftlichkeitsrechnung von FTS", which is only available in German language. This program is no mandatory prerequisite to a cost-efficiency analysis, but it facilitates the procedure considerably. This guideline is expected to be particularly useful for small and medium-sized companies who seldom plan investments of this scale, and who are not familiar with the special features of automated transport.