25 years of CargoMatic in logistics: from revolution to reality

Hello, I’m Paul van der Does, Sales Manager at CargoMatic, and I have 25 years of experience in the automatic loading and unloading of trailers. Today, I’m starting a monthly blog in which I’ll discuss the latest developments in the logistics sector—the opportunities, the challenges, and how customers can respond to them.

Let’s take a look back 25 years. When I first started, automatic loading and unloading of trucks was a true revolution. Many forward-thinking and rapidly growing manufacturing companies were no longer able to store their finished products internally and often, in collaboration with logistics service providers, built external warehouses 5 to 20 kilometers from the production site. To efficiently transport the cargo from production to the logistics center, an automatic loading and unloading system was introduced. Forklift drivers would place the pallets on the system, and once a full load was ready, it would be automatically loaded. As a result, loading times were significantly reduced from 30–40 minutes to just a few minutes. This led to an immediate decrease in the number of trucks, drivers, and forklift staff needed—the first major efficiency gain had been achieved!

Forklift loads pallets into trailer with CargoMatic

In those early years, pre-staging of cargo was still done with forklifts, but in the following decades, this practice shifted to internal transport systems. The stationary CargoMatic system was connected to palletizing machines, allowing pallets to be placed onto the stationary CargoMatic system without any human intervention. Manual pre-staging became a thing of the past, leading to significant efficiency improvements by eliminating the more costly and hazardous forklift operations.

Trailer with CargoMatic is loaded by AGV

DThe labor shortage in recent years has accelerated the adoption of the next efficiency leap: the Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV). In many of our current projects, we link the automatic loading and unloading of trucks to AGVs. Since AGVs can sometimes be less precise, Cargo Floor has developed an AGV receiving station that accepts pallets from the AGV and positions them side by side in such a way that they can easily enter the rear portal of the trucks. This process is repeated until a full load is automatically loaded into the truck. The major advantages of AGVs are their flexibility and programmability, which means they don’t block routes—unlike solutions that rely on static conveyors.

When the truck driver (and in some cases, even the driver is no longer needed thanks to self-driving trucks) arrives, they can load 33 pallets into the trailer at the push of a button—in just 2.5 minutes. The same process then takes place a few kilometers down the road at external warehouses, where the pallets are again automatically moved into the high-bay warehouse using AGVs, without any involvement from forklift drivers.

Choosing a fully automated CargoMatic system means saving on labor costs, creating more calm and structure within your organization, preventing product damage, and requiring fewer drivers and moving equipment. Opting to pre-stage using AGVs also eliminates the costly and unsafe use of forklifts. On top of that, automatic loading and unloading reduces the space needed at the docks.

Want to learn more about how a fully automated CargoMatic system can boost efficiency in your business? Feel free to contact us! The future is NOW!

23 april 2025, by Paul van der Does