How To Improve Haul Efficiency With Portable Truck Scales

If you’re managing a truck fleet, regardless of what you’re hauling, there are three critical things you need to have constantly at the front of your mind:

1. The safety of your people
2. Compliance with regulatory compliance requirements
3. Maximising profitability

There are quite a few levers you can pull in terms of protecting people – managing fatigue, safe loading practices and the like. But load configuration and attention to payload are critical. Similarly, with compliance. But the factor that all three have in common is effective management of payloads, which comes down to being able to accurately measure loads – not only on a gross basis, but loads distributed across axle groupings.

One of the most important tools that fleet and logistics managers can have access to is accurate weight measurement, which means accurate scales. Weighbridges offer this but aren’t always available, which is where truck scales – either portable or in-built, are a critical consideration.

Those in charge of haulage programs have a couple of significant factors to consider when looking to maximise haulage efficiency and profitability – maximising payload and minimising unnecessary wear and tear on vehicles due to poor loading and load configuration. If you don’t maximise the payload on every trip, you can easily measure the lost profit. But if you overload a truck, or a specific axle configuration, you will see a decrease in fuel efficiency, greater wear and tear on vehicle components such as tyres and gearboxes as well as potential structural damage to the truck and or trailer.

However, the most effective systems won’t just offer a once off measurement that optimises haulage efficiency and minimises compliance and safety risk. Real value-add comes from being able to access that information across a fleet, in real time, so that you can both plan and respond in order to deliver the best possible haulage performance. Collection, transmission, analysis and communication of data is essential to delivering continuous improvement and performance enhancement.

These outcomes can be delivered through the application of truck scale technology specifically designed to improved safety, compliance and profitability outcomes through sophisticated measurement and information technology that accurately captures, communicates and analyses critical load information from quality weight measurements.

The most competitive enterprises will always be looking for clever and innovative ways to improve productivity, reduce costs and maximise compliance outcomes. The most competitive truck haulage operators will do that through the use of industry proven measuring systems such as the Truckmate weighing system by Trakblaze.