Huge savings on truck costs

In its distribution centres, the Travis Perkins Group wanted to move away from using internal combustion (IC) engine trucks in favour of electric machines, and as part of a £5m contract with Briggs Equipment, were supplied with 57 counterbalance Yale trucks on a three year contract. Hoppecke supplied trak air batteries, 52 high frequency chargers, five battery changing systems and five trak monitor call forward and management systems. This was all backed-up by the company’s Power for Life contract, which not only takes away any risks associated with managing batteries but dramatically improves their operation.

Initially, Travis Perkins selected equipment from Hoppecke for use in one of its distribution centres. Prior to this the company was connecting truck batteries for recharge to 50Hz chargers when the truck was not in use, but this was reducing battery life, increasing the need to top-up and incurring needless electrical charging costs. With the Hoppecke high frequency chargers, charging is restricted to when it is needed, which has cut the charging requirement to twice a week, and reduced topping intervals. The Hoppecke Power for Life service means that all the warehouse counterbalance Yale trucks have filling carried out under an annual service contract from Hoppecke.

Gus Whyte, sales director, national accounts and systems at Hoppecke, said, “A lot of companies with trucks only insist on IC engines because they feel they need access to that machine 24 hours a day during their weekly shift requirements. However, if they don’t use the truck over the full 24 hours there can be unnecessary costs.

“Also, with Power for Life all responsibility of battery filling and maintenance has been removed from the operators. This has eliminated all health and safety issues, taken away problems with battery corrosion on the floor and allowed the company to concentrate on its core business and not on batteries and chargers.”