Manufacturing & Warehouse Distribution equipment, service, rentals & support from Abel Womack, Raymond forklift NE Distributor

Skip to content
  • Online Catalogs
  • Contact
  • Locations
  • Customer Login
  • Cleanrooms & Controlled Environments
  • FANUC Industrial Robots
  • Automated Storage and Retrieval Warehouse Systems
  • Manufacturing Solutions
  • Modular Building Systems
  • Raymond Forklifts
  • Mobile Storage Systems
  • About Us
    • Careers
    • Customer Service Policy
    • Customer Testimonials
    • Discover the Difference
    • Our Locations
    • Management Staff
    • Raymond Solutions & Support Center
  • Forklifts
    • Used Forklifts and Equipment
    • Forklift Rentals and Leases
    • J1-TSV Task Support Vehicle
    • Raymond Basics
    • Power Solutions
  • Parts & Service
    • Equipment Maintenance & Repair
    • Forklift & Conveyor Parts
    • Forklift Safety Training
    • Shop Warehouse Products
    • Tennant Sweepers and Tennant Scrubbers
  • Optimization
    • Fleet and Warehouse Management Solutions
    • Lean Management
    • Labor Management
    • Asset & Maintenance Management
    • Operator Assist Technologies
    • Real Time Location System
  • Robotics
    • Industrial Robots
    • ROBOXX
    • FANUC Robot M-20iA
    • FANUC Robot M-710iC
    • FANUC Robot M-410iB
  • Integrated Systems Solutions
    • Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV)
    • Automated Storage & Retrieval Systems
    • Conveyor Systems and Sortation
    • Deep Lane High Density Pallet Storage
    • Pallet Racking and Shelving
    • Mobile Storage Systems
    • Warehouse Automation and Software
    • Indoor Vertical Growing
    • Modular Building Systems
    • Cleanrooms and Controlled Environments
  • Engineering
    • Automated and Robotic Simulation
    • Facility Design and Layout
    • Project Management
  • Information
    • Blog
    • Case Studies
    • Industry Solutions
    • Videos
    • Media Kit
You are here: Home / Blog / Do Your Business Partners Go to Great Lengths for You?

Blog: Do Your Business Partners Go to Great Lengths for You?

January 21, 2019 – 

September 13, 2018 is a day that many here in the Merrimack Valley will remember for some time. If you’re not familiar with the area, the Merrimack Valley is a region in Northeast Massachusetts that’s home to quite a few cities and towns including Lawrence, Massachusetts and Abel Womack headquarters.

A Series of Misfortunate Events

Lawrence-MA-gas-explosions

Lawrence, MA

I left work at 4:00 pm that afternoon to get ready for a gig I had that night. Not only am I the Network Manager at Abel Womack, but I’m also a musician in my spare time. Within minutes of getting home, I was greeted with the sound of what I thought was my HVAC starting. Strange, I thought, “Why would my heat be running on a late summer day?”

It turns out it was the start of the nightmare that many in the Merrimack Valley would live through for months: Columbia Gas workers had inadvertently over-pressurized the gas lines feeding over 8,000 homes resulting in many fires and explosions across three communities, and the unfortunate death of one young man. As firefighters and police scrambled to save the city, a safety and security decision was made to cut power to all of South Lawrence, including our office.

The Show Must Go On

As the night wore on, emails from Abel Womack’s team started coming in asking if we could be open for business the next day. The Mayor had issued an evacuation order, so the initial answer was no since nobody would be allowed into the city. But we had a business to run. With most of our servers located in the Lawrence office, our Wallingford, CT and Edgewood, NY offices would only be able to perform the most basic functions without support.

Quick Thinking and Some Ingenuity

Separately, our IT Manager and I both got back into the city to see what we could do to support the other offices. We had recently begun testing with some 8210 pallet truck batteries as backup to our regular UPS batteries. We were initially disappointed with the results having only gotten just under four hours of run time out of them.

Fortunately for us, we recharged them, but we never reconnected them after the test. We knew we had fresh batteries and could get our server room up and running for four hours. However, we also needed to get our internet routers powered up. Those are located in the DMARC in our shop – right next to the dock door. And, as luck would have it, our IT Manager drives an electric vehicle! We brought his car into the shop and connected the batteries to an inverter, and we were able to power up our routers.

Success! Our other offices were back up and running.

24-Volt Batteries to the Rescue

Eventually, the batteries in the server room started fading, so we ran a couple of extension cords from the inverter back to the server room and powered up a couple of servers so our other locations could finish out the day.

Once the dust settled and power was restored late Saturday afternoon, we set out looking for a plan to get something more robust and automatic to ensure our server room would power through in case of another emergency.

Inverter-connected-to-24-volt-batteriesWe eventually settled on three pure sine industrial inverters. Each one is connected to its own circuit and battery for a total of 14,000 watts from:

  • 2) 24-volt batteries from Raymond 8410 Walkie Rider Forklifts
  • 2) 24-volt batteries from Raymond 8210 Walkie Pallet Trucks

Each inverter can charge the batteries connected to it, as well as switching from AC power to DC in less than 10 milliseconds. Each has its own battery and circuit. Each circuit supports multiple servers, our phone system, alarm system, and all routers and switches.

Essentially, we designed and built three large scale UPS battery systems to run our server room and DMARC. While a standard UPS will give you about 10 – 20 minutes of runtime, our version should give us close to a day. And, with a warehouse full of forklift batteries, we can effectively keep our office up and running for days or weeks, if needed.

A True Team Effort

A special thanks goes to our National Accounts Service Manager, with his background and knowledge in engineering and mechanics, for conceiving this plan. And to our Facilities Manager for putting all of it safely together. All of this could not have been possible without their help.

While it was great to see our team come together to accomplish a goal, it was even more impressive to see the city of Lawrence, and our neighboring towns of Andover and North Andover, do the same. As a resident of Lawrence, and a member of the Abel Womack team, I couldn’t be prouder of where I’m from. This also proves that if your business has a need for something uncommon, or you have a unique challenge to solve in your warehouse, chances are Abel Womack can dream up a solution and make it happen.

About the Author

Tim Corcoran is the Network Manager at Abel Womack.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Search Everything
Subscribe to our Blog
Get a weekly email each time a new blog post is published.


 

Archive
Featured Post

3 Reasons to Switch to a VNA System & Reach New Heights

January 31, 2022

VNA forklift in cold storage

The Straight and Narrow In our previous blog post on VNA Rack Systems, or Very Narrow Aisle … Read More

More Posts
  • Little Leaf Farms Raises Efficiency & Space with Radioshuttle
  • The Importance of Picking Accuracy and Operational Improvement in your Warehouse

All Blog Posts

Raymond_ASASC_2020

Abel Womack - Discover the Difference - logo
1 International Way
Lawrence, MA 01843
800-554-2887

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Linkedin
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Forklifts
  • Careers
  • Fleet Management Solutions
  • Professional Design & Engineering Services
  • Parts
  • Service
  • Forklift Training
  • Pre-Owned Forklifts
  • Forklift Rentals
  • Products
  • Contact Us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
Offices In
Massachusetts
Connecticut
New York
Maine
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont

Copyright © 2023 · Abel Womack 2.0 on WordPress · Log in