Driver Operated Weighbridge/Truck Scale Increases Throughput

Driver-operated weighbridges/truck scales have increased efficiency at Singleton Birch, the UK’s largest independent lime producer.

The Melton Ross site has its manufacturing and extraction facilities on either side of a road. The only truck scale available was at the processing site and required a full time operator to weigh out bulk and bagged lime as well as all of the quarry traffic.

Lorries from the extraction site had to cross the road before and after loading to be weighed, a laborious and sometimes inefficient system, as overweight vehicles would need to return to the ‘bridge before leaving the site with a safe and legal load.

The company installed a new Sales Order Processing (SOP) system and decided to upgrade its weighing capability. It purchased two driver-operated BridgeMont weighbridges for the quarry traffic and bespoke software to interface with the new system.

The SOP system exports job schedules to the weighbridge software. The ‘in’ bridge takes the vehicle’s tare weight and a cab-height driver console captures the vehicle registration and instructs the driver on what material to load.

On leaving the site, the ‘out’ bridge calculates the net weight and, if the vehicle is within its legal weight limit, it issues a ticket for the customer’s and driver’s records.

The weighbridge software collates this information and exports it back to the SOP system, which produces an invoice.

Benefits

• Traffic flow streamlined – easing vehicle congestion for faster throughput.
• Driver operation – reduces costs of staffing the ‘bridge 24 hours a day.
• Simple vehicle identification by card reader or keypad entry – ensures that data is recorded accurately.
• Driver is guided through the loading process – assisting correct order fulfilment.
• Only correctly loaded vehicles can leave the site – assisting vehicle safety and avoiding fines.