BY TOBY GOOLEY, SENIOR EDITOR
BATTERIES AND CHARGERS
materialhandlingupdate
Two product categories that haven’t changed much in the last 10 years—batteries and
chargers for lift trucks and mobile devices—are undergoing a transformation.
IF YOU’VE BEEN OPERATING UNDER THE ASSUMPtion that the batteries and chargers you will use to power
your forklifts and mobile devices a few years from now will
be pretty much the same as the ones you’ve used for the
past decade, you’d better sit down. We have news for you:
This normally staid product category is on the verge of a
revolution.
Advances in technology are fostering a wave of innovation in chargers and batteries—both very large ones, such
as those for electric lift trucks, and very small ones for
mobile devices like bar-code scanners, RFID readers, and
printers. There’s a lot going on, and we can’t cover every
recent development in this short article. (We’ve left out
lithium-ion batteries for forklifts, which we covered in a
separate article last year, for example.) But we can offer a
few examples of the capabilities that are turning old-school
equipment into 21st century tools. Here are five that bear
watching:
1. Alerting users to problems as they happen. Electronic
monitors and diagnostics for forklift battery utilization,
power usage and output, and water levels have been around
for a few years. Earlier generations required technicians to
connect the batteries to a computer or testing device during
troubleshooting or scheduled maintenance. Now, thanks
to wireless communication, it’s possible to transmit data
in real time, alerting fleet managers when a problem first
develops, not days or weeks after the fact.
These wireless battery monitoring systems continuously
collect, log, and report information like temperature, water
levels, charge intervals, and state of charge while the battery
is operating. If a problem develops, they send an alert via
e-mail or text message. This information is also delivered
to an online portal or cloud-based software platform,
where it can be analyzed and managed, allowing fleets to
compare batteries’ performance by truck, individual site, or
a network of sites. Some examples on the forklift OEM side
are Raymond’s iBattery, Crown Equipment Corp.’s Battery
Health Monitor, Hyster Co.’s Hyster Battery Tracker,
and Yale Materials Handling Corp.’s Yale Battery Vision
products. Examples from independent providers include
Yes, there is something
new under the sun
