Linde Material Handling (UK) Ltd.

The company have been fitting The Weigh Ahead on board weighing system for three years and keep coming back for more.

They are the newest on the market and by far the easiest to fit and operate. Operator training takes three minutes.

We use a very high quality Swiss pressure transducer to sense the load on the hydraulic system and our own equipment translates the signal and displays the load in kilogrammes (or pounds) on the screen.

Each of the four parts of The Weigh Ahead is waterproofed to IP66 or better. This means that it will operate under 30ft. of water, or survive an Aberdeen winter.

The reliability of our equipment has been excellent. A lot of the trucks with our system operate outside all year round and their annual calibration shows them holding their original accuracy. The electronics are housed in robust, sealed boxes and have given us no trouble.

The Weigh Ahead is used in many different industries but they are bought for two reasons: to improve safety and to make the operation of the truck more efficient.

An example of improved safety can be found at a large offshore services company in Aberdeen. They have eight Weigh Aheads fitted on trucks from 2.5T to 8T capacity. When trucks arrived in their yard with containers and equipment from offshore it was often impossible to know what weight the parts were. This led to several incidents of overloading and near accidents.

Using The Weigh Ahead a truck lifts a load just clear of the platform of the lorry and registers the weight. If it is within the truck's capacity it is unloaded but, if not, a larger truck is used.

This is a totally safe procedure and has made the company a safer place to work.

A builder's merchant was selling large quantities of sand and aggregate in one tonne bags They were having a lot of 28 tonne loads delivered each week and bagged them with a bag filling bucket on their fork lift.

A check showed that they were selling 25 tonnes for every 28 tonnes they bought. After fitting The Weigh Ahead they charged out every tonne they bought. The owner of the company never confided the pay back time for the equipment to me but it must have been a record.

Macaskill of Stornoway

The company have a depot at Dalcross where goods are moved in and out from all over the country. The destination of much of these goods is Lewis via the ferry at Ullapool. Their lorries are loaded at Dalcross and weighed at Ullapool before boarding. If the trailers are overweight passage is refused. If they are underweight they are losing revenue. Now that Weigh Ahead on board weighing is used at Dalcross each vehicle arrives at the ferry loaded to the maximum. Drivers now know they are operating legally, profits are maximised and they get on the ferry every time. Customers are now charged for the actual weight of their goods and not the weight they claim.

Scotcast of Airdrie

This company is a very large builder's merchant. They fill and deliver large numbers of one tonne bags of sand and gravel each week. 28 tonne loads arrive daily and are tipped into walled off sections of the yard in different grades and colours. Upon checking records, it was discovered that only 25 bags were being filled from each 28 tonne load. A Weigh Ahead system was fitted to their JCB TLT3 truck and the guesswork was removed. Now every tonne that is bought is sold accurately.

Sparrows Offshore

Based in Aberdeen, the company have a constant traffic in offshore containers arriving and leaving their yard. Containers arriving from offshore are dangerous to handle as their weight is not known. Each of Sparrow's fork lifts have a Weigh Ahead fitted. When a truck is selected to lift a load off a lorry the forks are put under the load and the weight checked before it is removed from the lorry. If the load exceeds the capacity of the truck it is simply dropped back on the platform and a larger truck is used.