Success Stories
Forklift Fleet Conversion Saves
Auto Supplier Flex-N-Gate $1,000,000!
Flex-N-Gate Corporation develops, manufactures and supplies parts and assemblies for the world’s leading automakers. Flex-N-Gate relies on fast and accurate material handling to ensure its customers get their orders “just-in-time.”So when they first switched some of their forklifts from liquid propane to battery power, they noticed immediate gains in productivity and efficiency. No more changing propane tanks twice a day, at 15 minutes per tank change per truck. They moved to EnerSys® Express® fast charge battery technology for their lift trucks, and now the batteries charge while the drivers are on break or lunch.
As Flex-N-Gate continued to flip their fleet to electric, they noticed something else — thousands of dollars per truck in annual fuel savings. Now with close to 200 lift trucks converted to electric, Flex-N-Gate is realizing more than $1,000,000 a year in fuel savings.
“Flex-N-Gate is a three-shift, six-day-aweek operation. They have customers around the world who need their products just-in-time. It’s absolutelyvital that their plants are operating at peak efficiency,” says Todd Eveland, sales engineer, EnerSys. “I’ve been working hand-in-hand with them for three years now, analyzing 30 different plants and configuring the batteries and chargers for each one.”
Since each plant consumes power differently, Todd works with Flex-NGate to analyze the power needs for each forklift fleet in each of the 30 plants. He then develops a power solution for each truck in each plant. It’s a thorough process, and Todd has enjoyed working closely with the Flex-N-Gate team.
“By eliminating the downtime associated with tank changes, EnerSys helped us eliminate waste in the manufacturing process, which is critical to our ability to compete for new business and retain current customers,” explains Joel Cody, director of purchasing, Flex-N-Gate. “We were also able to reduce maintenance costs — something that really adds up for a fleet of more than 200 lift trucks.”