Earlier this year, the time had come for major battery manufacturers around the United States, to raise prices. After watching the cost of lead steadily increase for the past three years, these manufacturers have opted for an increase on industrial motive power batteries, the majority being around 6-8%, to get their margins back to a more acceptable level. For facility and operations managers, that makes the fun task of fitting necessary costs into a strict budget even more challenging. Unless you are a company with endless amounts of money, purchasing a forklift battery is an investment and as such, it is imperative that you protect your investment. That’s what makes the use of a single point watering system so important in the motive power world. They save you time and money when watering your batteries and generally pay for themselves within a year.
Several companies that I have talked to recently have told me they prefer watering guns over watering systems because they are the cheapest method of battery watering that the industry offers. While this is true, it only applies if you are only looking at the front-end cost and do not have a large fleet of batteries. The Model XP watering gun, which can be found exclusively at powRparts.com, is an outstanding option if you have less than five batteries, don’t run your forklifts very hard, and just need something cheap, yet effective. The gun comes with an automatic shutoff mechanism that will fill your cell to the appropriate level every time you use it, thus eliminating human error and the chance of overfilling/underfilling your battery.
The issue with using a watering gun with more than just a couple of batteries is the time wasted. This translates into money not being spent effectively. For instance, let’s say that you have an employee that makes $20/hour and they are tasked with filling a 36 volt forklift battery. On average, it’s going to take around 10 minutes to fully water your battery, with a watering gun, meaning you just paid the employee $3.33 to complete this task. If we take that same employee and have them water the same type of battery with a single point system on it, the amount of time it will take decreases from 10 minutes to around 2 minutes. This now means that the employee will be paid just $0.66 to water the battery, which saves your company $2.67 in labor per battery.
Buying watering systems for your entire fleet of batteries keeps your employees safer, saves a ton of time, and reduces labor costs drastically. Systems generally pay for themselves in the first year of purchase and can be a great way to offset the rising prices of forklift batteries. Feel free to reach out to me if you would like a return on investment calculated specifically for your fleet of batteries, at no cost, and don’t forget to visit powRparts.com for all of your battery watering needs!