At a quarry in Lime City, Ohio, drivers for Tri County Block & Brick ask loader operators to add a little more rock – and then a little more. Until recently, it was anybody’s guess if the vehicle was at capacity until it reached an inground scale.
“We want to come out of the loading area 100 percent productive, with the most payload we can legally carry,” says Mike Hitt, who maintains the Swanton, Ohio-based private fleet. But an overweight payload means more work and wasted time. “You have to return to the pile, dump stones and get back in line behind 20 or 30 trucks to reweigh,” Hitt says. “The extra time can cost you a whole load that day.”
Many fleets – private and for-hire – face similar challenges. Shippers of steel, lumber, agriculture and liquid or dry bulk product often judge their current and would-be transportation providers on a cost-per-pound basis. The more payload a truck carries, the lower the cost of transportation.
While loading, a driver could monitor the air pressure in the suspension of the tractor’s tandem axles; he then could approximate the vehicle’s gross combination weight (GCW). But this crude method offers no concrete evidence that the vehicle is being operated at maximum productivity.
Onboard load scales can eliminate such guesswork, helping drivers and fleets better manage their weights and provide a competitive cost advantage. These scales convert air pressure into actual weight – from pounds per square inch (PSI) to pounds – with a marginal degree of error. The payback from the technology, vendors say, comes from precision, efficiency and confidence of compliance.
One major difference among today’s onboard load scales is analog versus electronic, with each type having an advantage. For analog devices, the advantage is cost. Right Weigh recently launched a new line of liquid-filled onboard load scales; companies can purchase complete tractor and trailer sets for less than $200.
“We are attractive because we are affordable,” says Scott McColluch, Right Weigh marketing manager. “For fleets that are looking at buying a large number of units, this makes a big impact immediately.”
