There are systems on the market that can provide us with information about the water level in the electrolyte and the water temperature in the elements of a traction battery. The only problem is that such systems, unlike fleet management for electrical machinery, offer the information only at the local level, and the interested party, (machinery rental company), does not receive such information, which could help him to:
- Increase productivity
- Reduce costs
- Increase customer loyalty
Implementing fleet management in a fleet of electrical machinery is therefore a paradigm shift. Fleet management for electrical machinery changes the way of working on the basis of objective data and not based on assumptions that are difficult to demonstrate when, for example, a customer calls the machinery rental company with a problem with a machine he has rented. On the other hand, it is true that there are systems that indicate the level of water in the element of a traction battery, and even the temperature of it. However, the problem with these systems is that the information they offer is only local, and, therefore, the fleet manager, who is the one who assumes the costs, cannot make use of that information to solve problems and improve.
Below we describe some of the advantages and improvements that we will achieve with the implementation of fleet management for electrical machinery:
- Geolocation of the machine outdoors and indoors, which in addition to offering us information about where the machine is, can provide information on the performance of the staff.
- Remote capture of machine hours, which will help us reduce manual and repetitive tasks such as the collection and entry of hours in an ERP or Excel manually. Since the fleet management system for machinery performs the capture of hours and the management of revisions automatically.
- Monitoring of the charge cycles, which gives us information about when the machine is connected and disconnected and the level of charge of the battery, being able to generate alarms and reports that demonstrate the charge and discharge of the same.
- Battery voltage, which will provide us with information about the state of the elements, or at what point of discharge the battery is. Being the critical charging point of a 20% traction battery, as indicated in the following article, it is advisable that it is not used below this value. In this sense, the fleet management system for electrical machinery, will launch the corresponding alarm when this end occurs.
- Monitoring of the water level in the elements; When water is missing from the elements, the battery heats up above the temperature recommended by the manufacturer and its useful life is reduced, in addition to increasing the probability of its breakdown. Fleet management for electrical machinery will launch a previously configured alarm, provided that this temperature is above the configured temperature.
- Chest water detection; it is a recurring problem that when adding water to the elements, it falls into the chest and produces corrosion in it. The fleet management system will launch an alarm every time water is detected in the chest of a battery in the fleet.
- Monitoring of the temperature of the battery, which will indicate if it is being subjected to an overvoltage or over current, which can be caused by the malfunction of the charger. It is something that fleet management for electrical machinery will also help us control.
It is therefore demonstrated that the implementation of fleet management in electrical machinery is more than justified, which also pays for itself in a few months. If you want to see a use case for this type of machines, do not hesitate to consult this article.