Electric forklift battery solutions for your facility:
Your facility may be hiding a significant opportunity for savings and process improvement. Greater oversight of your electric forklift battery management — charging, battery watering, maintenance and more — can lead to efficiency, cost-effectiveness and smoother overall operations in warehouses, distribution centers and any other building that uses powered forklifts.
Whether your facility needs small changes that add up to results or a full upgrade of your electric forklift battery management approach, consider embracing new technologies such as lithium forklift battery systems. In other cases, new management approaches to charging could represent your most promising option. Turning battery management over to an expert third party could pay dividends. Alternatively, you can keep day-to-day operations in-house while setting up a maintenance partnership.
While the exact right solution will differ based on details such as the scale and speed of your logistics activity, one fact remains — there is potential value in looking more closely at electric forklift battery management.
How Do Electric Forklift Battery Systems Work?
Every forklift battery program can be broken down into a few distinct units. These are the operational components that keep forklift vehicles operating. These include:
- Choice of technology: Quite simply, what type of batteries do your forklift vehicles use? While variations on the traditional lead acid battery model remain dominant, an increasing number of operators are using thin plate pure lead (TPPL) and lithium. Hydrogen has been adopted by a select few high velocity operations, but new lithium automated battery swap systems are eliminating the need for this option.
- Battery watering method: Working with lead acid batteries means having a battery watering system in place. Organizations should not overlook this aspect of their operations. When proper battery watering practices are ignored, the overall usable life and effectiveness of batteries can decrease.
- Approach to charging: Forklift battery charging schedules can be planned out in a number of different ways. Some facilities do not take a strategic approach, charging whenever they can. They may be passing up some operational efficiencies, paying extra for peak power usage or even weakening their equipment. Models such as opportunity charging and fast charging represent a more thought-out style.
- Maintenance and upkeep: Running equipment until it fails means settling for unnecessary downtime, and breakdowns affecting forklifts lead to logistics slowdowns and lost revenue opportunities. Organizations can take a more proactive approach to maintenance, especially when they work with third-party experts.
Optimized electric forklift battery management means considering these areas and more. More than simply placing batteries into vehicles every day, the most effective logistics organizations will look for opportunities to save money and improve their day-to-day efficiency through forklift battery management.
Importance of Battery Life For Electric Forklifts
A long-lasting forklift battery is crucial, making forklift battery maintenance a key component of industrial operations. Proper battery maintenance:
- Extends battery life: Over time, your battery can wear down, which decreases capacity and efficiency. Forklift battery management and maintenance identifies and resolves these issues early to prevent premature failure and extend electric forklift battery life.
- Saves money: The battery is also a significant part of the forklift's value, so maintaining it keeps your operations cost-effective.
- Improves safety: Forklift battery maintenance makes forklifts safer to operate. Deteriorating batteries can overheat or provide insufficient power, which can damage the forklift or cause an accident.
- Reduces downtime: If the forklift battery fails, it can increase downtime for your facility as you wait for a battery replacement or repairs. Maintenance keeps the battery in good condition so that your forklifts can stay running and your facility can reduce downtime.
Electric forklift battery life depends on:
- The type of battery: Lithium ion and lead acid batteries use different technologies and have different maintenance routines. Lithium ion batteries tend to be more expensive but last longer and require less maintenance. Lead acid batteries are cheaper and more readily available but last fewer cycles.
- Battery usage: Electric forklift batteries last longer when kept out of extreme temperatures and charged when 20% to 30% full so not overdischarged. You can take advantage of opportunity charging for lead acid and lithium ion batteries where appropriate.
- Forklift battery maintenance procedures: Using a proper management system is one of the most critical ways to extend battery life. A maintenance routine may involve cleaning, fluid level management, cell balancing and temperature control.
With a management system, you can prolong your forklift battery's life span so that your company can gain the maximum value for the investment, decrease expenses and improve safety, all while maintaining your machine's performance.
Benefits of Having the Right Industrial Forklift Batteries
While forklift battery management has meant lead acid battery management for years, options have diversified significantly. Now, businesses can choose from many battery solutions, each with its own pros and cons. This choice of technology might prove to be the key decision that sets the tone for a business's forklift usage.
Today's options include:
- Lithium forklift batteries: Lithium ion forklift batteries use chemistries like lithium iron phosphate or Nickel Manganese Cadmium (NMC) to power forklifts. This battery type has become very popular in recent years due to the promise of long-lasting power. One lithium forklift battery can have a life span as long as the usable life of the forklift truck itself. High-usage scenarios, such as multiple-shift forklift operations, are a good match for a lithium forklift battery.
- Thin plate pure lead (TPPL) batteries: TPPL batteries have a lead grid plate to conduct the current, and some plates have additives to strengthen the lead. Organizations that have lots of daily free time to charge batteries and strong operator compliance cultures can thrive with TPPL cells. These batteries are quick to charge and are especially suitable for light-duty forklift use scenarios.
- Hydrogen fuel cells: Hydrogen fuel cells combine hydrogen and air with a catalyst, generating electricity and creating water vapor as a byproduct. Hydrogen fuel cells are implemented in high velocity facilities to eliminate operator charging time and “green” the power supply. Newer options like lithium batteries and now automated lithium battery reload systems are replacing this option for greenfield facilities in many cases due to the significant infrastructure cost of hydrogen fuel and the high maintenance of fuel cells.
- Automated lithium battery reload systems: Similar to hydrogen, our PowerHIVE™ system eliminates the forklift operator's requirement to charge or maintain their batteries. When their battery is low, they drive to the 23X26 cage, park and push the RELOAD button, and the robot and charging system provide them with a fresh new battery, all in two minutes. These systems are lower-cost than hydrogen, lithium batteries alone or lead acid battery swap systems.
- Lead acid batteries: Lead acid batteries are liquid-filled units with a removable top. The chemical reaction of sulfuric acid and lead plates generates electricity to power the forklift. Lead acid batteries must be refilled with water to keep working properly. While some facilities will take optimum value from using new technologies, the best approach for others will be to refresh their approach to charging and maintenance while still using lead acid batteries. Reliable, familiar and surprisingly green, these batteries have a place in today's logistics facilities. For lower use facilities, lead acid is “old faithful” and still a great option.
While the choice of electric forklift battery technology is just one selection modern operators have to make, it is a formative decision. All other forklift battery management choices will be made to maximize the effectiveness of the selected industrial forklift battery technology, whether that is a cutting-edge solution or a legacy option. The type of battery and charger pair you choose will impact your efficiency, whether you purchase a battery for one forklift or your entire fleet. The technology for each battery type varies, which affects productivity.
How Can You Transform Your Electric Forklift Battery Management?
The crux of improved forklift battery management involves taking a more hands-on approach to this area of business. Rather than seeing forklift batteries as a cost center, companies that really focus on charging, watering and more can find ways to simultaneously strengthen their budgets and unlock increased efficiency in the warehouse.
The following are a few of the steps that contribute to rethinking forklift battery management that your organization can follow to improve its overall material handling practices:
- Start with an assessment: You cannot truly know how to improve your industrial battery management operations until you understand what is currently going on. What is your organization's approach to watering? What is the condition of all relevant equipment? Are you charging batteries in an optimized way, from either a time management or space management perspective? An assessment will establish these important facts and point to possible solutions.
- Consider your unique needs: Some facilities operate a few forklift trucks on a single shift. Others require dozens of vehicles on two or three shifts. Your ideal approach to battery management will depend on where your business falls on this spectrum. For instance, forklift battery charging methods that take place during off-hours may be perfectly efficient for single-shift warehouses, while those running around the clock could benefit from implementing battery swap systems, so vehicles are not idle when they could be active.
- Pick a power management model that works: There is more than one way to optimize power management. You can work with experts to establish new infrastructure and best practices. You can also implement a remote automated asset management system (RAAMS® system) to receive updates that will help you stay ahead of potential issues with your batteries, battery chargers and related systems. There are also fully managed service offerings that put all battery management duties in the hands of on-site experts. Getting the ideal match for your needs sets your organization up for material handling success.
Transforming electric forklift battery management helps remove a potential pain point from efficient warehouse operations, preventing lost revenue and allowing your organization to turn its focus to other areas. Especially if your business uses numerous vehicles on multiple shifts, the potential savings add up quickly.
Why Choose Concentric as Your Forklift Power Partner?
To make electric forklift battery management optimization truly matter, and to unlock the potential value from this process, you should ensure your business has a trusted and experienced partner organization on its side. This is where Concentric enters the picture.
Whether the ideal solution for your facility is as quick as a forklift battery charger equipment refresh or involves full managed services engagement, Concentric can provide the necessary perspective and industry experience. The application engineering team at Concentric has been active for over 20 years, elevating power management to a science and helping organizations of all kinds refresh their material handling operations.
With a Concentric-designed solution in place, your business can treat forklift battery management as a utility rather than a cost center or a liability. The value gained from better forklift battery operations can have ripple effects throughout your business. To get started, request an assessment today.