| SkidWeigh |
If
Your Freight Re-Weighing Program Is Dropping Off...
Keep It Moving with SkidWeigh
| SkidWeigh |
|
If the SkidWeigh System had been available in 1984, it's likely that Jack Batten would have thought twice about writing his murder mystery, Crang Plays the Ace. The plot of the Toronto-based thriller revolves around accounting sleight-of-hand car-tied out by garbage hauling firms. But SkidWeigh and its 99-percent-accurate on the spot weight readouts would have cut through the flimflam immediately. |
In real life, the garbage hauling business is more interested in profits than murder and mayhem. But current ecological pressures have now compacted its money-making possibilities. The major culprit is the skyrocketing cost of dumping garbage or tipping fees at municipal dump sites. Current fees at Metro-area sites are $170 per ton up from $10.62 per ton in 1981.
"SkidWeigh is all-Canadian technology resulting from three years of effort and about $500,000 in development costs," explains Zeljko (Ted) Jurca, the systems inventor. "And it's manufactured right here in Toronto. We've received Canadian, U.S. and Australian patents. And we've applied for ones in Japan and the European Community."
Jurca 42, is no basement inventor. He spent the past 20 years developing on-board computing devices for heavy duty trucks, such as a tachograph which graphs the revolutions per minute (rpm) of vehicle engines. More recently he has developed electronic monitors for tractor-trailer brakes and forklift truck use.
SkidWeigh is a computerized black box about the size of a taxi cab meter. The system has a pressure transducer mounted on the vehicle's hydraulic system between the lift control valve and lift cylinder. That becomes the system's weigh scale. The back pressure caused by the load is equal to the weight. In other words, the system uses the vehicle's hydraulic system to weigh its load.
"It's a lot easier on our equipment's hydraulic systems than other products on the market," explains John Sanderson, Vice-President and General Manager of L.W. Sanderson & Sons Cartage Ltd. in Brampton; owners of three SkidWeigh Systems. "And it is easy to install. The operator can do it alone in a couple of hours."
Still SkidWeigh's major attraction is its ability to save money. "In our business, drivers 'eyeball' the weight of a load and charge customers a flat-rate based on that estimate," says Sanderson. "But it is easy to be out a 1,000 pounds on a load. And if you do that a few times a day, you can lose several hundred dollars a trip. However, if we can provide a fast accurate weight, we can price more realistically. And customers are more confident that they are getting a fair shake from us as well."
"A user can earn back the $3,700 cost of the system in a matter of months," says Jurca.
Sanderson's firm helped iron out the bugs in the system by testing it. And since SkidWeigh's official launch this past spring, there are six systems currently in use mainly by Metro-area haulage companies.
But Jurca's eyes light up at future sales prospects. "There are 45,000 front-end loaders in North America alone," he says, "and countless more in Europe and Japan." (Front-end loaders are the huge trucks that lift industrial-size garbage containers from commercial businesses.)
And SkidWeigh is infinitely adaptable to all these potential countries. It can be programmed in any language and because it is menu-driven, it is easy to use. And it can be used to weigh loads on other vehicles such as forklift trucks, side loaders and dump trucks by punching in the appropriate codes.
Ultimately, the SkidWeigh technology is more than a state-of-the art portable weigh scale. "The data it captures can provide management with vehicle utilization rates and ways for measuring performance standards," he says. "For most fleets, such information is now based on guesswork not hard numbers."
by KEN MARK
BUSINESS JOURNAL OCTOBER 1992 pg. 11
Click
on image to enlarge
"Jurca's SkidWeigh is more than just a state-of-the-art portable garbage scale"
Patented Technology USA 4,757,712; 4,949,263 Canada 1302566; 1304479 Australia 598,376;605,647 Germany 38811280.0; 3887754.6 EC 0293697; 0351453
| SkidWeigh |
Trucking Companies No Longer Have a Weight Verification Problem
Many companies that use lift trucks have tried various weigh scales on the market, only to be disappointed in their performance. The rough environment causes the scales to require constant re-calibration. Up until now, installation of a scale on a lift truck has not been worth the hassle.
For the past two years, several trucking companies have been testing the SkidWeigh weight checking device. One maintenance manager for a transport company reported, "The SkidWeigh is doing a great job with little or no maintenance." As a result, his company has installed 30 units across the U.S.A.
The return on investment has been excellent. Currently many trucking companies are using the scale to ensure the weight indicated on the waybill corresponds to the actual weight of the cargo. Since the scale can verify the load weight in less than 10 seconds, it will not impede the lift truck operators' productivity.
One terminal manager reported that by using the SkidWeigh to check each load weight, revenues have increased by several hundred dollars, monies that were previously lost. Based on an investment of $2,300.00, the SkidWeigh paid for itself less than three weeks.
Ted Jurca, the designer of the SkidWeigh, has been working on this project for more than six years. The unit was built with the following objectives in mind:
- accurate to +/- 1% of full scale
- simple to operate and calibrate
- maintenance or calibration after installation is minimal
- can be installed on any forklift regardless of make, model, lift capacity or voltage
- two hours installation
- engineered to withstand the harsh industrial environment
"Those companies who use it have found the SkidWeigh to live up to its promises. You might say the SkidWeigh "is worth its weight in gold".
| SkidWeig |
Overloading the Situation
Click on image to enlarge
|
Have you ever found yourself guessing the weight
of a pallet when filling out a waybill? A recent survey was
conducted to determine how effective shippers skills were at estimating.
Would you believe, on average,
actual waybills were underestimated by 39%! At first thought
it may not seem like a big deal; however it can cause two serious
problems.
Firstly, when trucking companies ship your pallets across the country, they use the waybill information to determine the total weight for the trailer. If the weight of the pallets are inaccurate, the trailer may be overloaded. An overloaded trailer on the highway is a major safety concern and subject to large fines. |
Secondly, under the Ontario government's Bill 179, the shipper is accountable for axle and gross overweight loads. Ministry of Labour officers will charge shippers whose trucks exceed maximum axle weights or indicate inaccurate waybill loads (refer to section 426 of the Highway Traffic Act).
Manitoulin Transport has long been known for its impeccable safety record and excellent service, and has received the Ontario Transport Association "Gold Award of Excellence". To ensure that its vehicles do not exceed allowable weight limits; Manitoulin is one of the many carriers today that utilize an inspection and re-weigh program to capture accurate shipment weights. How does Manitoulin manage to quickly and accurately inspect thousands of shipments each week and still maintain its excellent service record? Manitoulin Transport has installed SkidWeigh Systems' weight indicators on many of its lift trucks. Lift truck indicators are not legal-for-trade in Canada; but they do serve as an excellent tool for screening freight. When a shipment is lifted, the operator checks the SkidWeigh, which is accurate to within 1%. If the indicator weight exceeds the bill of the loading weight by 10% or more; the shipment is taken to a nearby platform scale for re-weigh. The "Legal For Trade" platform scale transmits the weight directly to the computer system, generates a revised customer waybill and updates the trailer manifest.
It is in the best interest of shippers, carriers and the general public that allowable vehicle road weights are not exceeded, nor safety compromised. Lift truck weight indicators are a valuable tool that allow carriers to quickly determine which freight needs to be re-weighed and which can proceed directly on to a destination trailer.
Click on image to enlarge
Integrated Visual Data Technology Inc. Oakville, Ontario, Canada