As the fulfillment environment becomes increasingly connected, the lift truck battery has become a new focal point for companies that want to get the longest life and usage out of their investments.
Lift trucks battery used to be about brawn. The Lithium lift truck battery of the future will be about intelligence, automation and software. And, the future is closer than you think.
Surely you remember the line from the Planet Fitness commercial: “I lift things up and put them down.” It’s spoken by a brawny weightlifter with all the finesse of a crowbar to a windshield.
You might think of your fleet of lift trucks in the same way: all brawn, no brains. They pick things up and put them down. What could be simpler, right? Think again. Today’s lift trucks—and the lift truck technology on the drawing board—are anything but simple. Sure, lift trucks still pick things up and put them down, but they also collect a wealth of information about those lifts while tracking the performance of the operator and monitoring the mechanical and power systems. And, they are no longer machines unto themselves: The lift truck is now capable of communicating in real time with other warehouse and manufacturing systems.
At Green Cubes Technology, Robin Schneider, director of marketing, says that monitoring is a core focus for battery makers right now. In the past, lead acid batteries used a battery management device (BMD) that was attached to a charger and used to monitor performance. The process took about three to five minutes to complete (per battery) and could only handle one battery at a time.
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, on the other hand, use a battery management system (BMS), which at a minimum must provide a number of safety features for the use of Li-ion, but they also monitor the battery’s state of charge, health and communications. “A BMS enables the battery itself to communicate to the outside world about how it’s being used and its performance,” says Schneider. “In this ‘first generation’ of battery monitoring, people can log in locally (using a local hot spot) and monitor everything within that hot spot location.”
A warehouse manager, for instance, could monitor all lift truck batteries at a specific location or remotely, the latter of which Green Cubes recently added to its products. “We can look at batteries nationwide across different users, locations and vehicles,” Schneider explains, “and then monitor the battery usage and utilization for that equipment.”
This not only helps pinpoint failure points and other problems, but it also allows warehouse managers to troubleshoot remotely. “The information is so detailed,” she adds, “that it allows us to examine each battery cell individually.”
Dean Portney, vice president of sales and marketing at Hawker, says the connected battery trend is largely driven by the introduction of lithium-ion batteries, whose chemistry requires finite monitoring by a battery management system in order to deliver the highest level of safety. “Many lift truck OEMs require communication between lithium batteries and their trucks to ensure optimal performance, safety and delivery of the longest economic life out of the battery,” Portney explains.
And while Hawker has been using wired devices to monitor its batteries for about 15 years, he says the “sophistication and requirements of new [battery] chemistries deliver superior performance and longevity with good communication.” Considering the growing popularity of lithium-ion batteries, many battery manufacturers have also designed battery management systems (BMS) that communicate with the lift truck using a CAN communication protocol.
Looking ahead, Portney expects interest in connected lift truck batteries to increase as companies strive to do more with less in the fulfillment environment. Being able to monitor batteries and chargers remotely from a smart phone or tablet, for example, means easier predictive maintenance, budget management and problem identification. “This is especially useful for companies that have to monitor that activity across multiple locations,” says Portney.
The growth of the electric lift truck market has been one of the biggest stories in the industry over the last five years. As a result, the battery that provides power during a shift is the most important asset on a lift truck. “Once you’ve figured out the requirements for your lift truck, the efficiency of the power package has the most impact on your operations,” says Hugo Chen, director of information systems for BSLBATT Battery. “Our priority has been to work in parallel with emerging technologies like lithium ion and Lead Acid battery to develop battery management tools that prolong the life of the battery systems currently in use on most trucks.” BSLBATT battery is applying the same telematics used in fleet management to measure, monitor and report on the condition of batteries. “We can now look at how the battery is reacting to the work it has to do to understand whether a battery needs to be replaced because it is underperforming or needs to be tested because we see something is happening,” Hugo Chen says. Telematics solutions will also provide feedback that enables customers to optimize their battery charging, changing and watering processes to extend the life of the battery
In the near future, the data being collected from the batteries will be streamed to a cloud-based portal where it is analyzed for dashboard reporting with very specific KPIs that affect profitability and performance. “A performance KPI can illustrate battery life and how it’s trending,” says Hugo Chen. “If they want to look further into that, we can drill down into other areas for root causes, like how is the user discharging or watering the batteries.” Ultimately, that information can be used to track efficiency across multiple facilities and to create an action plan and benchmarks to improve battery performance.
According to Schneider, early adopters of connected lift truck batteries tend to be in the cold storage space (namely, food and beverage), where lithium-ion batteries and remote monitoring are both welcome changes in these harsh environments. To switch out a lead acid battery, for example, you need space and time, both of which come at a premium in the cold storage environment. Operators also need time to stabilize the battery temperatures in and out of the cold storage area.
“This is an environment where there’s a lot of advantage to just keeping the battery and the charger in the cold storage and then monitoring it remotely,” says Schneider, who points to the popularity of home grocery delivery and meal kit providers like Hello Fresh as two other key drivers of connected lift truck battery usage. “These are [sectors] where companies are seeing the highest ROI as early adopters of connected battery technology.”
For companies of any size, changing batteries on an electric lift truck is time consuming and, when not performed correctly, can significantly shorten that battery’s run time and life. “The bigger the battery room, the more confusing it becomes, and the more expensive the problems become,” says Steve Schubring, director of sales at Philadelphia Scientific.
He says the company’s Intelligent Battery Organizing System (iBOS) monitors more than 50,000 chargers worldwide and provides customers with a plethora of data points and intelligence they can use to make good decisions about their equipment. “We’re giving them metrics that range from availability to management to connect voltages to charge reintegration,” Schubring says.
Using Philadelphia Scientific’s battery management system in place, companies can eliminate the guesswork and also save money. Because it ensures proper battery rotation—which is critical to longer battery life and maximum run time—iBOS also enables more cost-effective utilization of a pool of batteries.
Pressed to do more with less, today’s warehouse and DC managers need all the help they can get when it comes to getting the most value out of their existing equipment. Lift trucks are no exception to the rule, and batteries serve as the lifeblood for these fulfillment center workhorses.
In 2020, BSLBATT introduced the GPRS cloud platform, which continuously scans for battery information and uploads the data to a Cloud server. Operators and managers can then use that information to address issues, track usage, and plan for upcoming maintenance and repairs more proactively.
“It can be hard to tell when a battery is nearly worn out; you can’t look at it and make that determination,” says Bollinger. “A battery can appear to be in really good condition and even if it’s properly cared for, still be near the end of its life.”
Through connected technology, warehouse managers can “virtually” peel back the layers on this vital piece of equipment and get more proactive about maintenance, repair and replacement. “Using this knowledge, they can get their capital equipment expenses properly scheduled into their budget cycles,” says Haley Ning, “versus having it be a ‘surprise’ expense.”
According to Hugo Chen, engineer of Forklift lithium battery at BSLBATT, the heart and soul of the connected lift truck battery is the data that keeps operators and management teams informed about battery and charger activity.
“Operators get the feedback that they can use to be productive during their shifts,” said Hugo Chen, “while management better understands how equipment’s being used and can plan ahead for potential replacements or downtime (due to a fault with the battery or charger).”
Like other battery manufacturers, BSLBATT Lithium continues to roll out new hardware along with applications like GPRS cloud platform, a software-driven application that supports interconnectivity between the battery and the charger, and then feeds that information back to an operator with a mobile device. It uses Bluetooth and BSLBATT Wi-Fi battery monitoring devices (or chargers), and then displays that operating data on the mobile device.
The information is then uploaded to the Cloud and used to take any necessary corrective actions. “We can take corrective actions from a distance,” says Hugo Chen, “and don’t necessarily have to be onsite to understand what’s going on with the health and state of charge of the battery, or with a charger’s charge profile.” This not only helps minimize downtime, but it also helps ensure that BSLBATT dispatched the right level of support for specific problems (for example, equipping a technician with the right equipment to fix a battery quickly).
Hugo Chen says this data-centric approach helps push companies out of reactive mode and allows them to be more proactive. This, in turn, can lead to significant cost and time savings during the life of a battery. Going forward, he expects more lift truck manufacturers to embed smart tools in their vehicles with a particular emphasis on tracking and understanding equipment utilization.
“We’re also going to see CAN communication start to occur between our battery devices that are already set up for CAN communications,” says Hugo Chen. “That will allow us to physically ‘hook’ a communication wire back to the lift truck, transmit information through the vehicle’s dashboard, and begin to integrate battery information with the lift truck information.”
