“We ran the numbers and never bought a lift truck without a Li-ion battery after that!”. Warehouse Manager.
We are excited to share the news about the launch of Low Temperature Series Li-ion Batteries. BSLBATT Lithium has designed these batteries to be used in harsh Cooler and Freezer environments, with temperatures as low as -22F. Such conditions are usually deadly for other batteries but not for our Low Temperature Series!
Executive Summary.
One of the leading China dairy producers made the switch to BSLBATT Lithium Ion batteries to ensure uninterrupted multishift warehouse forklift fleet operations in temperatures ranging from -30 to 70F.
The Company featured here is one of the country’s largest branded food and beverage companies with 13 manufacturing plants throughout the China.
In 2018 the Company was looking into ways to improve its operating efficiency and safety. Freezer and Cooler environments with low temperatures put a lot of strain on lead-acid batteries resulting in long charging hours and frequent disruptions of daily operations.
The switch to Yale trucks powered by BSLBATT Low Temperature Series Li-ion batteries was smooth and did not require any operational or infrastructure changes. As a result, the operations management saw an increase in their forklifts runtime and a major decrease in charging and overall battery maintenance time. Workplace safety has also improved.
Challenges.
This dairy producer, with almost 200 years in business, has grown to become one of the leading national dairy producers with the highest operational and safety standards. Although electric forklifts are the best choice for food manufacturing and personnel safety, the lead-acid batteries were creating constant issues. Besides acid spills and fumes in the course of daily maintenance, lead-acid technology has an inherent weakness – these batteries lose up to 33% of its power in cold environment (30F), and up to 50% in a Freezer enduring its brutal -20F. Taking into account that a lead-acid battery can’t go under 20% of discharge, and a rigid charging schedule of 8 hour of charging and 8 hours of cooling, the fleet performance was obviously suboptimal.
The uptime increase has become a real issue for the company with the 2 shifts operations, when batteries needed to be charged and changed in the middle of a shift. “There was a lot of frustration!”, said Mr.Li, Heli Sales Manager, one of the leading national dealers of Material Handling Equipment.
When Mr.Li from Heli introduced the facility management to the new Li-ion technology, management had already known about this technology for years. The Warehouse Manager was however, apprehensive regarding the actual performance of Li-ion batteries in the cold environment. There were no benchmarks and other cases to review of Li-ion batteries operating in similar applications.
Mr. Li started with a full power study of the equipment application, including an analysis of data including charging time, maintenance time and full ROI calculations. He came up with a “one truck – one battery” design based on Li-ion power solution, and a new set up for the chargers much closer to the operations.
The Company decided to start with a Demo battery to make a data-driven decision. The BSLBATT Lithium solution features advanced data capabilities. The battery’s BMS (Battery Management System) provides insights on the battery State of Discharge, exact timing and duration of charge and discharge events and calculates total Ah throughput. This allowed Mr.Li to calculate the useful lifetime of the battery accurately, but also helped make the decision on the voltage and capacity best suited for the specific operation!
After a few weeks of operation, the actual usage data from the Demo battery was clear – a battery of a bigger capacity is required for optimal performance. The 630Ah capacity recommendation was updated to an 830Ah.
Many of our customers are already using these batteries and the new Low Temperature Series is our response to an increasing demand from Food and Beverage manufacturing, Cold storage, Distribution, and other industries. Call us to find an BSLBATT Low Temperature Series Li-ion Battery to match your lift truck!
