UgoWork powers a more sustainable workplace with Hologram SIMs

Modernizing materials handling fleets with connectivity

UgoWork™ was founded in 2015 to help organizations improve their operational efficiency and sustainability by integrating energy savings into their material handling activities. With the UgoWork Lithium batteries plus UgoPilot™, their proprietary Battery and Energy Intelligence Platform, thousands of electric forklifts achieve the highest levels of availability at the lowest cost for their customers.

From Day 1, UgoWork knew that Cellular IoT was essential to combat issues with Wi-Fi connectivity inside the warehouse and manufacturing floors. To get their pilot quickly off the ground, they started with a local provider in Canada. As they expanded, they started having significant connectivity, coverage, and cost issues. “We quickly added several additional connectivity providers to get better geographical coverage,” noted Jean-François Marchand, Marketing and Customer Success Director at UgoWork. “Unfortunately, multiple connectivity providers translated into our operations and support teams wasting time going into each of their apps to track the location and status of units.” Plus, it created headaches for the accounting team to manage contracts with multiple providers and track their data usage.

Gaining confidence in a new provider

With their success being hampered by this unintended complexity, they knew they needed a better solution. But, moving to a new connectivity provider felt risky, and they wanted to have a high level of confidence before the transition.“We tested Hologram in one of our problematic gap zones where other providers failed, and their devices worked flawlessly,” added Marchand. “We knew we could trust our consolidation on the reliability and availability of the Hologram platform.”

Simplicity delivers smart and smooth operations

The UgoWork support and contract teams immediately saw the difference. With the Hologram Dashboard, the teams had a single view into each connected forklift battery’s location, status, data consumption, and more. Plus, now the development teams could focus on building additional services for customers, not worrying about connectivity issues that impeded the flow of critical data.

“Hologram delivers connectivity that is essential for every facet of our business — from maximizing the uptime of our client’s industrial trucks through accurate and real-time tracking of energy usage where we derive our revenue.”

– Jean-François Marchand, Marketing and Customer Success Director, UgoWork

Real-time data is their key differentiator

UgoWork’s commitment to customers is more than fast battery charging. They help to ensure the uptime of their client’s forklift fleet by tracking the assets, gleaning insights into optimal equipment charging, and proactively queuing assets for maintenance. Their customer’s entire production depends on that forklift being charged and ready for material handling.

All of these services rely on real-time data, something their competitors aren’t able to offer. “We’re as much in the data business as the battery business. Any disruption in our services can have devastating financial consequences for our customers,” noted Marchand. “We trust Hologram to deliver the high levels of availability and reliability for the data that powers our real-time services.”

Data powers UgoWork services

With data from the Hologram Cellular IoT SIMs at the heart of their business, UgoWork leverages it across their internal operations to deliver the best services to their customers.

• Virtual troubleshooting: With the SIM card providing geolocation, UgoWork knows exactly where assets are and their connectivity status. In large warehouses and manufacturing facilities, this can be extremely valuable in helping their support team troubleshoot. If a battery is not sending data, they can track the SIM card and see what is going wrong. The Hologram Dashboard puts their eye on the field virtually. The abundance of real-time data from the SIM helps them get to the root cause of problems for faster issue resolution.
  
• Energy as a service: UgoWork bills customers based upon their energy consumption and that information is transmitted via Hologram SIMs. “Hologram delivers connectivity that is essential for every facet of our business — from maximizing the uptime of our client’s industrial trucks through accurate and real-time tracking of energy usage where we derive our revenue,” noted Marchand.
  
• Over the air (OTA) updates: UgoWork’s OTA battery update feature streamlines the process of maintaining and enhancing battery firmware remotely without the need for physical interaction with each battery unit. This technology, enabled by Hologram SIMs, allows firmware updates to be sent directly to battery systems installed in material handling equipment across various locations, helping UgoWork easily scale to manage their growing connected battery fleets.

Data enables smarter operations for UgoWork customers

Hologram Cellular IoT SIMs deliver the data for UgoWork to help their customers optimize their operations, decrease costs, and save energy.

• Optimal charging sequencing for high equipment availability. In warehouses and manufacturing plants running around the clock, the batteries powering forklifts need to charge at every opportunity or they may not be able to complete the next workshift. Customers using UgoWork batteries receive live push notifications for low battery, lost communications, low autonomy, and more.
  
  “Our system sends a notification that Forklift 5 in Zone 25 didn’t charge and will miss the next shift unless the situation is remedied,” added Marchand. “Fleet and operations managers value that our system watches out for them so that their equipment doesn’t cause the manufacturing line to go down.”
  
• Right sizing their fleets to save energy and costs. Using Hologram data from the batteries, both UgoWork and their customers can conduct data analysis and look at trends over time. When fleets transition from lead acid batteries to Lithium batteries, the forklifts charge faster, last longer, and save on energy costs.
  
  “When customers move to UgoWork, they get more productivity out of their forklifts and end up with too many,” said Marchand. “Using the data from the Hologram SIMs, we’ve helped our customers reduce their forklift fleets by as much as 47%.”

What's next?

The Lithium battery market has grown consistently over the last 5 years and is accounting for roughly 10% of the global battery market share. Experts predict that will increase to 50% by 2030, putting UgoWork in an ideal position for expansion globally. Finding more ways to use data from the Hologram SIMs is key to that growth.

Next up for their customers is peak shaving – enabling batteries to proactively adapt to grid pricing. With a peak shaving model, batteries charge quickly while plant operations are underway to stay in service and then charge slowly overnight to save on energy costs. “Hologram delivers the real-time data we need to lower our customers' energy costs, decrease oversized fleets, and maximize their operational uptime.”

Congrats UgoWork for the amazing service you created with Hologram SIMs! We’re excited to be your connectivity partner as you help customers accelerate their sustainability goals. We can’t wait to see the amazing things we can do together for your customers.