Remembering That Guy – Batteries

Warehouse and Operations as a Career

Forklift and Palletjack batteries. Has your facility experienced any issues this week? Our supplier called us this week to schedule our quarterly P.M. on our equipment and almost immediately I started hearing about batteries. A palletjack battery in one state started smoking and another actually produced flames. At one facility an unloader forgot to replace a guard plate, well, he said it already wasn’t there, which just meant that he failed to pre-trip his equipment, anyway he took off, made a turn and the battery slid out on the floor. Luckily it didn’t turn over and spill everywhere! Oh, and one place had an order selector somehow get the charging cable caught up in his jack and ended up pulling the battery charger down off the wall! Batteries aren’t one of our daily thoughts even though we are around them and using them everyday so I thought we’d talk a little about them here in a bit! I’m Marty with Warehouse and Operations as a Career and I appreciate the listen today!

This morning when I was driving into work, I was thinking about a conversation I had over the weekend with a friend. He had heard from a guy we used to work with like 15 years ago. A great guy, one of the best reachlift operators I’ve ever met, and he was pretty good sitting on a counterbalance lift as well. Anyway, he used to kind of back up our receivers when the dock would get backed up with freight and purchase orders. Helping them get everything tagged or covering for them on day’s off or vacations. He’d never gotten that promotion due to his, a, well, personality or thought process. I know we’ve discussed our attitudes lately, but it wasn’t an attitude, I guess personality is the right word. Now, like I said he’s a great guy. He just presents high energy, loves to talk and when you break it down, he’s not really a rule’s kind of guy. He is a bit of a ME guy. I remember one day he was laughing at one of his peers about how long it took him to get home, they lived in the same neighborhood. One of the highways they had to take had an HOV lane. It was one of those where you can drive in and out of. Just those 3-foot-high plastic polls as lane markers. Anyway, he was laughing, saying he just jumped in and out of the HOV lane and he could drive like 80mph that way. He expressed how funny it was that the highway department used the plastic poles because they didn’t even hurt your vehicle. Well, his supervisor was overhearing the conversation and interjected how that didn’t sound like a very mature thing to be doing. This gentleman stated yeah, they fine you $400 if you get caught but you didn’t get into any trouble, he’d had to pay two tickets for it. I’ll never forget the look on the supervisor’s face, and it was one I’d seen several times where this individual was concerned, and several times after also. Again, he was a great guy, always at work, and loyal to a tee, but not always the best decision maker. So, as I was driving in today, I saw 2 people, not wanting to wait in line to turn left zoom past like 15 cars and then nudge their way in front of someone to jump line. Twice I observed two vehicles out right run red lights. At another stop light I saw a guy honk at a little old lady for not accelerating through an amber light because he then couldn’t run the red light. Oh, and get this one, this wasn’t this morning, I witnessed this one over the weekend, but a guy in a sedan actually jumped a curb to turn right on red at a signal stating No Right Turn on Red. And he got upset with the girl in front of him for not turning right for him!

Ok, I’m not one to judge, I honestly don’t care. Many of you know I drive a bike sometimes on the nice days so I’m more than just a defensive driver! I just try and roll with the flow. I always wait a few seconds to let them race on through or I’ll back off and let them slide on in front of me, although I have to admit that I giggle a little when I see someone riding alone in the HOV lane, especially when I suspect that the sheriff departments at the end giving out citations. It’s just a few more minutes people! There’s absolutely nothing wrong, in my opinion anyway, with being that person. But why are there those people? I think it was Warren Miller that said You are a unique person, just like everybody else.

Anyway, like I said, there’s nothing wrong with having that personality, it’s you. But we need to realize it could hold us back in our career. Remember what we’ve learned, more money is solely based on more responsibility. Making decisions, thinking of others and always looking out for the company’s interest are the attributes our Managers are looking for when selecting someone to take their place. If we do have a little ME in us, don’t flaunt it or think it’s worth bragging about. Remember, when we make the decision to skirt the rules we’re affecting or holding up someone else. A lot of times we’re holding ourselves back.

So, batteries! We all learned in our PIT training that it’s important to know a little about our equipment’s battery. The data plate is where we can find most of that information. We know to follow our facilities charging protocol and to make sure we always check the battery guard or containment plate on both sides! But what’s special about our industrial batteries? I’ve worked with 12v, 24v, 36v and 48v systems but I understand they have 60v, 80v, and even a 96v systems for certain applications!

Of course, the charging of our batteries is probably our most important concern. Anyone ever came in to start your shift and found that your counterpart failed to plug in our jack or forklift? You’ve noticed the connector ends are different for each type of our equipment, this prevents us from accidently connecting to the wrong voltage charger. That wouldn’t be good for our batteries at all. As for chargers, you’ll see critical power chargers and motive chargers. There’s many different kinds of both, some perform diagnostics and smart chargers can even control when our batteries will accept a charge. I’ve worked around float chargers quite a bit. Amp’s seem to be more what us operators are going to deal with in our environments. Luckily for us we’ll have or should have a maintenance department or maintenance man that’s going to take care of all the technical aspects or concerns we’ll need to deal with. SBS battery is one of the biggest manufacturers I know of, check out their web site to learn all the technical stuff on industrial batteries you’d ever want to know.

A few things we should know, and I hope your supervisor explained all these to you during your walk-through orientation is that there is to be no smoking around batteries. That can cause more than just a fire. When batteries are charging, they can release oxygen and hydrogen, even hydrogen sulfide can be produced if over charged. Under certain circumstances even chlorine gas and arsenic can be produced. Again, these fumes are dangerous and it’s important our battery area is well ventilated. If you feel the smell is stronger than normal or something is wrong, it is our responsibility to notify our management team immediately.

Batteries are like everything else we work around; they can be dangerous. But if we practice what we’ve been taught, follow all the rules and procedures, there safe and we’re safe. Do go check out that website though, you’ll find something interesting and learn a lot more about working safely around them. Bring up batteries to your maintenance man, he’ll love having the opportunity to share a little knowledge with you! And please remember, if your responsible for changing your own battery, be careful, their heavy and you don’t get a second chance when working with that kind of weight!

I hadn’t planned on talking about batteries this week, kind of just came up! I’ll reach out and find us a maintenance Manager to come on the show and educate us to batteries, something above the do’s and don’t’s!

I hope we brought you something that you can think about and learn a little more on this week. And I hope to be back with you next week, until then, lets present ourselves as we’d like to be seen and be safe at all times. Remember our peers, significant others and our children count on us!