No matter what size workshop you operate or what vehicles you are working on, battery maintenance is essential to ensure vehicles stay on the road and are reliable. Implementing a battery management programme in your workshop can sound daunting, however with the right equipment, support and know-how, you can reduce battery failure and see your revenue increase dramatically.

So how can you implement a battery management programme?

Step One – Do you have the right equipment?

The best piece of advice we give to workshops is to be PROACTIVE by actively maintaining batteries, this is impossible if you don’t have the correct equipment to support you. In any battery management programme, you will find the same tools, a battery tester and a battery charger. Testers and chargers have different features aimed at different types of workshops. If you are looking for a suitable battery tester or charger, we can help!

Step Two – Ensuring you are accurately testing the battery.

The key to a great battery management programme is battery testing. Without testing a battery, you have no information on the battery’s health, if it can support the vehicle or if it is even able to be charged and used! We strongly recommend that you test your vehicles batteries at every available opportunity, a lot can change in a small amount of time and being PROACTIVE allows you to maintain the battery before it fails, increasing the life span of the battery.

The most important part of the battery test is the data entry. Before the test is performed, your battery tester will ask you to input information about the battery, such as battery type, units and rating. If this information is entered incorrectly this can completely change the outcome of the battery test. It is crucial that you enter the correct information that is displayed on the battery’s label. Once the test has been completed you will be presented with an action.

Step Three – Actioning the Battery Test

Actioning the battery test is just as important as the test itself. If the battery is performing well and you have a ‘Good Battery’ result, then you will not need to take any action. If the battery test determines that the battery requires charging you should immediately charge the battery. By charging the battery you not only give the battery more capacity but you also reduce the likelihood of the battery sulphating, yet again improving battery life. If you receive a “Bad Battery” decision, immediately replace the vehicles battery. If you do not the vehicle will most likely break down due to battery failure - if it hasn’t already.

By completing the previous two steps, you now have full confidence that the vehicles leaving your garage will not suffer from battery failure.

Step 4 – Reporting and using data to your advantage

Often workshops test and charge batteries and leave it at that, however the battery test data can be used in many ways to support your workshop and help your workshop increase revenue.

A system like ROBIS (Rotronics Online Battery Information System) can take your battery testing information and present it in filterable reports to support your goals.