Eager to see how its newly developed fuel cell device would fare in trials, East Penn Manufacturing decided to test the unit itself. But round-the-clock DC operations and 4,000-pound loads would make this a rigorous trial.
James Cooke is a principal analyst with Nucleus Research in Boston, covering supply chain planning software. He was previously the editor of CSCMP?s Supply Chain Quarterly and a staff writer for DC Velocity.
When it came time to begin testing its prototype hydrogen fuel pack for lift trucks, East Penn Manufacturing didn't have to look far for a beta tester. With a 180,000-square-foot distribution center operating 24 hours a day, the company already had an ideal test lab. Why not test the device itself?
And so, for the past two-plus years, the company has been using eight forklift trucks powered by the device, a hybrid fuel cell/lead-acid battery unit, at its DC in Topton, Pa. The trucks work alongside their 20 battery-powered counterparts at the cavernous facility, which operates around the clock five days a week. As tractor-trailers from the plants arrive at the DC, the forklifts offload pallets of batteries and place them in storage. They also ferry pallets from storage to the loading-dock area when needed. Shuttling pallet loads of batteries is no small task; the loaded skids weigh between 3,500 and 4,000 pounds apiece on average.
Best known for its Deka brand batteries, East Penn Manufacturing Co. Inc. makes batteries and accessories for the automotive, marine, farm equipment, and industrial truck markets. Though a DC operated by a leading battery maker might seem an unlikely proving ground for fuel cells—after all, fuel cells might soon be competing with batteries in the motive power market—East Penn doesn't see the cells as a threat. In fact, it sees them as a potential addition to its product line.
East Penn is not working on the fuel cell project alone, however. In December 2004, the Lyon Station, Pa.-based company began discussions with Nuvera Fuel Cells of Billerica, Mass., about developing a fuel cell-based unit for electric lift trucks. The result of their collaboration is the ReadyPower, a hybrid device that combines Nuvera's fuel cell technology with East Penn's lead-acid battery design. The two companies eventually hope to make the device available commercially.
Before it can begin selling the ReadyPower to customers, however, East Penn first needs proof of concept. Testing the unit on its own lift trucks has given the battery maker a way to validate the concept as well as work out any bugs. "We want this operation to be as seamless as possible for our customers' operations," says Jim Rubright, East Penn's vice president of motive power sales and the executive in charge of the fuel cell project. "They don't have time to experiment with new technology. They need to know it will work and work well, and we plan on proving that to them by using it in our own operation."
Getting the lead out
Although the use of fuel cells to power vehicles is still in the developmental stages, the technology itself is nothing new. First developed in the 19th century, fuel cells later were made famous when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration used fuel cells to supply electricity and water on manned space flights.
Hydrogen fuel cells like the ones used in the ReadyPower units use hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity. The only byproducts are water and heat, which makes them an environmentally friendly power source. Fuel cells differ from batteries in that they consume reactant (hydrogen), which must be replenished, whereas batteries store energy chemically. The ReadyPower unit consists of a fuel cell stack and a set of "peaking batteries" to provide auxiliary power. The peaking batteries are sealed absorbed glass mat (AGM) units that require no maintenance.
In operation, the fuel cell provides a regular supply of electric power to operate the vehicle and, at the same time, recharge the peaking batteries on board the truck. If the truck needs extra power to, say, lift a heavy load, the unit draws on the batteries for the extra oomph. "If the truck needs more power than the fuel cell can provide, the batteries kick in," explains Rubright.
The ReadyPower unit also contains a tank filled with compressed hydrogen gas. Although the size of the tank may vary, all tanks hold at least 0.6 kilograms of hydrogen. During its trials, East Penn has been experimenting with different sized hydrogen tanks and peaking batteries. (The fuel cell stack, by contrast, has remained a constant size in all models—14.6 by 17.3 by 20.7 inches.) A control panel is plugged into the ReadyPower unit and mounted on the lift truck to let the operator know when his fuel tank is empty.
The ReadyPower unit itself was engineered to be easily interchangeable with a lead-acid battery. "Our design is basically plug and play," Rubright says. "We can pull a lead-acid battery out and put a ReadyPower in its place if we want to, with no modifications to the truck."
Rubright reports that one of the challenges in designing the ReadyPower unit was handling the disposal of the water generated by the system. After some experimentation, East Penn came up with a mechanism for water evaporation as well as reuse. "In some other systems, you have to empty a [water] collection tank," he explains. "Ours is a water-neutral system."
In the design process, East Penn also had to address counterbalance issues— that is, keeping weight distributed evenly in order to prevent the truck from tipping over. The ReadyPower unit meets the same center-of-gravity and counterweight requirements as the lead-acid battery it is replacing.
Rubright reports that the ReadyPower unit has undergone constant tweaking during the last two years of testing. "We've subjected our unit to shock and vibration testing," he says. "And we've [made] a lot of improvements."
Consistent performers
As for the hybrid units' performance, the forklift drivers report several advantages to using the ReadyPower unit over traditional lead-acid batteries. For instance, the hybrids eliminate the need for operators to drive over to a special charging area at the end of a shift and remove a 3,000-pound battery for recharging. Instead, the drivers pull the truck up to a dispenser and refuel the unit with liquid hydrogen. Refueling takes just 30 to 90 seconds. "The operators love it," says Rubright. "And you no longer have to maintain a battery room with charging equipment."
The operators also report that the trucks using the ReadyPower units run "crisp." As Rubright explains, they're referring to the hybrid unit's ability to deliver a steady supply of power throughout the shift, in contrast to the traditional battery, whose voltage drops as the day wears on, making the truck sluggish. "As long as you have hydrogen in the [ReadyPower's] tank," he says, "the truck operates as if it's on a freshly charged battery all day long."
Rubright suspects that the elimination of "voltage lag" has led to increased productivity within the distribution center. In future tests he hopes to be able to demonstrate that operators on ReadyPower-equipped trucks move more pallets per day than their counterparts on traditional trucks do.
A chicken-egg dilemma
Although the beta ReadyPower units have shown considerable promise in testing, the technology still faces some obstacles to widespread adoption. For starters, a distribution facility using this technology needs storage tanks of hydrogen fuel on site. A company could purchase hydrogen from a commercial gas dealer or generate it from natural gas. East Penn plans to offer customers a "Total Power Solution" that provides on-site hydrogen generation, storage, and dispensing abilities.
In its own operation, the company has been producing hydrogen from natural gas at its site through the process of steam reforming. In that process, natural gas (mostly methane) is combined with steam over a catalyst bed to produce hydrogen. "There's a significant advantage to generating your own hydrogen," says Rubright. "The cost per kilogram for generating your own hydrogen can be half to two-thirds the cost of what you buy."
But the main obstacle to wider deployment of this technology remains price. "The industry knows we have to bring the cost down," says Rubright, who declined to give specifics on the actual cost of a ReadyPower unit. "It's the old chicken and egg thing. You have to have economies of scale [to bring down the cost], and at the same time, you're trying to get the technology out there in the market [to develop the needed scale]." He acknowledges that the technology may never be economical for light-duty or short-shift applications.
As for the next step, East Penn is now preparing to expand its pilot beyond its own four walls. Rubright reports that the company has lined up customers to deploy beta ReadyPower units in their own lift trucks later this year.
With more companies signing on to use the hybrid technology, is East Penn worried about the effects on its battery sales? Rubright dismisses that concern. He believes that the traditional lead-acid battery units will continue to be sold alongside units like the ReadyPower. "We envision this as one of the solutions in the bag," he says. "Whatever works best for the customer is what we want to recommend."
Editor's note: To read more about the use of fuel cells to power industrial trucks, see our June 2007 story "fuel cells get hotter."
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.