"We worked with Rotronics to understand just how much battery failure away from base was affecting our overall performance. Saving time and ensuring that delivery times could be continually met was a big driver for the development of a Battery Management Programme."
THE CHALLENGE
C S Ellis (Group) Ltd is a logistic services company, operating from four locations in East Midlands. They provide UK Pallet Distribution, a National Palletised Hazardous Delivery Service, European and International Freight Distribution, Commercial Warehousing, Export Packaging and Workshop and Breakdown service. C.S Ellis has approximately 50 Vehicle technicians every 6 – 8 Weeks.
Whilst C.S Ellis had a robust vehicle servicing process in place, this process didn’t involve the battery – David Beever from C.S Ellis explains ‘’Our vehicle servicing programme ensured that our vehicles were safe, road worthy and free from technical problems but we didn’t really touch the battery. We would check the fluid levels but that was about it. From time to time we were experiencing electrical non-starts (battery failures) away from base, necessitating costly jump start services from a third party provider and risking potential delays to our delivery schedules – this problem was affecting about 10% of our fleet.
Whilst there was a cost associated with delivering a jumpstart away from base, we were more concerned as a business that this problem was wasting time, resources and more importantly had the potential to affect our profit and reputation
We met Rotronics at a trade show and they introduced us to the concept of a Battery Management Programme that would protect against electrical non –starts by managing battery & charging system defects, and more importantly preventing them in the first place. We decided to undertake a trial of the programme in our workshop.’’ So for C.S Ellis the main priority was to prevent battery jump-starts away from base. To do this, batteries need to be kept above 12.4V at all times to protect against the risk of sulphation – the biggest battery killer. To perform efficiently, 24V battery sets also needed to be ‘in balance’ which would also reduce the risk of premature alternator failures.
Whilst C.S Ellis was prepared to undertake the trial they strongly stipulated that it needed to be a complete end to end process that would address these issues quickly, simply and effectively with no disruption service levels.
THE PROCESSS
THE EQUIPMENT
EXP1000HD Battery & Electrical System Tester
ChargeXpress Pro 50/2
Since implementing the Battery Management Programme we have seen electrical non-starts reduce significantly. We have had to undertake just one jumpstart away from base in four years, which we think was due to a faulty battery rather than a problem with the process.
For further information on how our products can assist your business contact Rotronics on: 0121 5268185 or email info@rotronicsbms.com
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