“Weigh” Too Busy for Bottlenecks? Automate Your Scalehouse

Look out your window – do you see trucks lined up at your scale? Bottlenecks at the truck scale are often due to outdated technology and can negatively impact your productivity and profitability. Fortunately, you can streamline transactions by updating your technology.

For ports and shipping facilities expecting a surge in demand due to recent investments in local, national and global infrastructure, the pressure is rising to optimize processes and meet production targets quickly, as to not lose out on profits. One crucial aspect that directly impacts efficiency is the weighing process at your truck scale.

By harnessing the power of cutting-edge technologies and innovative approaches, automation solutions tailored specifically to your truck scale can reshape the way you operate. Automating your truck scale can provide several benefits, including increased efficiency, improved accuracy, enhanced data management, streamlined operations, reduced safety risks, enhanced sustainability and more. Read on to explore a few steps you can take towards automating your truck scale.

Equipping Your Site for Optimized Processing

Peripherals like lights, loops, and photo eyes play a vital role in automating processes at the truck scale. These solutions can enhance visibility, promote safety and automate transactions, leading to safer and more efficient weighing.

Helping to provide clear and familiar instructions in the form of green and red light signals, traffic lights are a simple way operations can keep drivers and pedestrians safe. These solutions are often placed at the entrance of the truck scale to signal when it is safe for the next truck to pull on the scale, or at the end to signal when a driver can pull ahead and exit the scale.

Also known as induction loops or vehicle detectors, loops are embedded in the ground and work as sensors that detect the presence or passage of a vehicle. When a vehicle drives over the loop, it creates a magnetic field disturbance, triggering the weighing process. By incorporating loops into your infrastructure, you can automate vehicle detection and weighbridge operations, reducing manual intervention and improving efficiency.

Photo eyes are sensors that detect the presence of a vehicle or specific objects. These sensors are typically positioned at the entrance of the truck scale. When a vehicle passes through or triggers the photo eye, it sends a signal to initiate specific actions, such as activating the weighing transaction or capturing images for record-keeping purposes.

Self-Sufficient Operation – Day and Night

If you want to take automation a step further, consider the implementation of unattended kiosks and transaction management software. These automation solutions allow businesses to function self-sufficiently, with 24/7 operation even in remote locations.

Unattended kiosks, such as the IND9U from METTLER TOLEDO, allow drivers to independently complete the weighing process without assistance from site personnel. This can eliminate potential bottlenecks and reduce wait times, resulting in faster and more efficient transactions. By enabling your site to operate without a scalehouse attendant, unattended terminals can extend your working hours to maximize profits. You can also gain the ability to optimize labor resources and cut labor costs.

Transaction management software, such as DataBridge™, helps streamline the weighing process with automated weighing, billing, inventory management and reporting. Data management software eliminates the need for paper tickets, reducing human error in transactions. With easy tracking and traceability, software like DataBridge helps manage inventory, documentation, and can interface with billing functionality. It is especially important to be able to access weight records quickly and easily in periods of high demand.

Enable Next-Level Automation with Weigh-in-Motion Technology

Another way to increase efficiency is through weigh-in-motion (WIM) technology. WIM truck scales allow drivers to remain in their cabs throughout their entire transaction, staying in-motion from start to finish. With WIM solutions, operations can gain up to 3X higher productivity, reduced safety risks and a more sustainable operation.

WIM technology has come a long way in performance and accuracy. These solutions are tested to reach high accuracy levels, allowing operations to determine the exact weight of incoming and outgoing trucks. Accurate measurements are crucial to inventory management, pricing and load optimization.

Traffic management can be a challenge for ports and terminals. Lines of trucks queueing behind the scale can cause serious backups, affecting productivity and profits. Optimizing traffic management by keeping trucks driving over the scale reduces congestion, minimizes wait times, and streamlines operations.

WIM scales also help promote safety by eliminating the need for drivers to exit the cab. Keeping drivers in their trucks through the entire transaction reduces the risk of safety hazards, ensuring that drivers are taken care of, and the business is protected.

METTLER TOLEDO offers WIM solutions for many types of operations. Axle scales like AxlePass™ are a great fit for smaller layouts and tighter budgets. Full-length solutions like TruckPass™ are a good match for larger sites and existing scales.

Sustainable Practices at the Truck Scale

Many operations are now faced with stringent sustainability targets, forcing managers to look critically at ways to reduce CO2 and waste. Automating truck scale transactions can have an immediate and significant impact on site sustainability metrics depending on site volume and truck type.

Eliminating hand-written tickets with transaction management software reduces your paper waste. Unattended kiosks enable sites to operate without the need for a scale house operator, cutting down on labor costs and limiting energy consumption at the weighbridge, in the scale house and beyond! WIM technology and traffic management solutions keep trucks moving and thus greatly reduce long lines at the scale. When trucks are stuck idling for extended periods of time, they release excess CO2 emissions into the environment.

Automate Your Scalehouse

No matter what your operation looks like, automation can help boost throughput, productivity, safety, and sustainability. Whether your site can benefit from peripherals like lights and loops, unattended weighing and transaction management software, or even weigh-in-motion technology, METTLER TOLEDO can help you find a solution that can fit your exact needs. Go to www.mt.com/automate-scalehouse to learn more and begin eliminating bottlenecks at your truck scale today.