The Power-to-Performance Formula - Six Forklift Battery Tips

The supply chain is complicated. No matter the forecasts, supply chains continue to be difficult to predict. Many warehouse managers prioritize productivity to maintain and increase their throughput and efficiency. Even so, there may be missed opportunities in the push for productivity, and they may be at the heart of your forklift fleet.

Regardless of which type of forklift batteries you use, they can be one of the most essential factors in determining how well your facility performs. The consequences of an ill-managed battery can range from reduced operational performance to having one of your lift trucks completely sidelined. 

We’ve compiled six tips for properly managing and maintaining your forklift batteries to support operational performance, efficiency and uptime.

1. Conduct a Power Study

The first step to understanding battery performance is conducting a power study. A power study combines battery monitoring, data analytics and expert insight to provide qualitative information and recommendations for enhancing forklift battery performance.

2. Track Your Batteries

A simple, yet often overlooked, tip is establishing a baseline for the future by creating an accurate inventory of your batteries, documenting condition capacity and health for each one. This can help you better understand how your battery needs may be changing. This is especially important if your applications or equipment have changed over the course of the year.

3. Right-Size Your Battery Applications

Following a power study and accurately establishing a baseline of your current battery inventory, you should have a better understanding about the number of batteries required for your facility. You may still have questions about whether your inventory is appropriate for the applications within your facility. Every right-sizing exercise should be accompanied with battery utilization information. By equipping yourself with real-time, accurate battery performance data, along with the ability to track amp hours and throughput, you’re better positioned to understand the capabilities of your batteries.

4. Inform Your Charging Strategy

The data collected from your power study and monitoring technology will help you more accurately identify which charging method or charging frequency works best for your operation. Once you’ve made this determination, you can use additional information from the power study and monitoring technology to determine how many chargers you need to support your fleet and where they should be placed in your facility to maintain or increase productivity. 

5. Establish Standard Processes

Adopting standardized processes become even more important as you grow and add to your fleet. For example, in conventional charging applications, implementing a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) rotation is a commonplace practice. It helps avoid common problems like frequent change-outs and establishes a process for charging batteries. This can be as simple as a log-in sheet or an established process to “always take the battery on the left.” Your battery chargers may also offer features that help manage this process.

Consistent battery watering and equalize battery charging are two common issues that standardized processes can also help minimize or eliminate. Another common issue that should be addressed occurs when a battery’s cool-down period is too short. After you complete a full charge on a battery, it needs time to cool down before discharging begins. 

6. Revisit and Repeat

Your battery practices and strategy should never be static. They should evolve and change, along with your operational needs and forklift fleet. 

It is important to continually monitor and be mindful of your fleet and its power requirements. By conducting annual reviews of your battery management efforts, you can be better prepared to adjust and adapt your power-to-productivity formula. 

Forklift battery usage can be difficult to manage and understand, but advances in data analytics and monitoring technologies are providing new opportunities to strengthen battery management programs and remove guesswork from the process. This visibility helps enable a strategic approach to battery performance as yet another method for increasing productivity.