Patent ID: 8239251

Claim:
A system comprising: a materials handling vehicle comprising: a controller area network (CAN) bus; and at least one native control module coupled to the CAN bus of the materials handling vehicle that generates vehicle-related data and sends the vehicle-related data over the CAN bus; an information linking device physically coupled to the materials handling vehicle comprising: a CAN-bus interface coupled to the CAN bus of the materials handling vehicle, wherein the information linking device extracts the vehicle-related data off of the CAN bus; and an interface controller having a processor and memory, the memory configured to store the vehicle-related data extracted off of the CAN bus; wherein the processor is programmed to receive operator logon information and to perform a materials handling vehicle customization operation based upon the received operator logon; a wireless transceiver physically coupled to the materials handling vehicle, which is coupled to the information linking device, wherein the wireless transceiver wirelessly communicates information across a wireless network environment to a server computer and wirelessly receives information from the server computer; wherein: the wireless transceiver communicates the operator logon information received from the information linking device to the sever computer; the wireless transceiver receives from the server computer, at least one customization parameter based upon at least one operator-specific preference associated with the operator logon information; and the information linking device implements the customization operation by communicating across the CAN bus to at least one native control module of the materials handling vehicle to customize the materials handling vehicle according to the corresponding operator-defined preference.