A dirty battery causes a lot of problems. If you put a volt meter on top there actually is a slow discharge of the battery. If you charge a battery it will slowly discharge over time. Corrosion builds up and will ruin your cables which cause poor battery performance. Cables can get expensive at $70 - $100 each if you have a lot of batteries, in addition to degrading your battery performance. This can be avoided just by taking a little time to clean the top of the batteries.
3. Keep on top of under performing batteries.
A lot of companies don't take care of the problem batteries. Under performing batteries can draw heavy loads on electrical components of the forklift which are very expensive to the thousands of dollars. The damage happens when the battery gets low and it is used anyway.
You can tell a battery is under performing if it doesn't last a full shift. A lot of batteries only go for 1 or 2 hours and the drivers don't know which ones are good or bad. They just put them in and the batteries draw very quickly.
Facilities that have under performing batteries can spend thousands per month replacing electrical components in forklifts and the root cause is under performing batteries. These batteries can be identified, Brought Up To Full Performance and this expense can be saved.
When the lifts go down you have less productivity, less product moved, more battery changes and unnecessary costs of replacing components and the labor to do so.
4. Use filtered water in batteries.
Being in so many facilities and seeing things first hand I can tell you without hesitation that using tap water in your batteries will cause you problems and unnecessary expense. I see this all the time. Batteries that use tap water are far worse than all the rest of them. They heat up more. The minerals in the water build up on the plates and it causes heat. Heat causes premature battery failure. My estimate is you cut battery life by 50%. Even if your battery is covered by a warranty you have to ship it out and wait for it come back, and incur the costs to do so. This can be avoided by using filtered water.
5. Use a water de-ionizer.
A cheap and effective solution to the problem of using filtered water. You can attach it to your water line, it is cheap and you get the benefits of filtered water. It's easy to use. You don't have to mess with bottles of filtered water. You can use an automatic water gun and a battery is filled up in seconds rather than the minute or so it takes to pour in filtered water from a bottle, which is probably the main deterrent to using filtered water. This makes filling up easy and painless and eliminates the minerals that pollute the batteries and cause you expense and lost productivity.
6. Do not allow opportunity charging.
Do not allow charging during 15 minute breaks and lunch periods. Batteries are made to draw down 80% and then be full charged. If you opportunity charge you significantly reduce the life of your battery.
I think the reason this process starts is when you have under performing batteries, the drivers know this and they try to get a little more charge during their breaks.
Opportunity charging accelerates the deterioration of battery performance. If you identify the lesser performing batteries you can avoid this issue.