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07/09/2011
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Cartwright Bros of North Hykeham, near Lincoln, is reporting that its drive-over weighbridge is helping to improve productivity and customer service, while also generating revenue.
 The company, which runs a fleet of 60 trucks and 80 trailers on general haulage and is part of the Pall-Ex network, is using the Axtec weighbridge to ensure its own operations are legal, but has also had the equipment certified by Lincolnshire Trading Standards for public use.
Director Jamie Cartwright explains that operators can get their vehicles weighed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to ensure legal compliance or for invoicing by weight.
The Axtec 4000 weighbridge is the only one of its type that can be approved as a public weighbridge, as it meets the stricter requirements of accuracy (+/- 0.25%). This is only the second available for public use in the UK, the other being at Axtec's own premises in Runcorn.
Cartwright explains that his company's Pall-Ex work involves around 2,500 consignments each week, with considerable weight variation. Hence the weighbridge to check that each vehicle's payload is optimised and that it is operating within its legal weight limit, both gross and on individual axles.
He says that the weighbridge delivers all this information in the few seconds that it takes a vehicle of any axle configuration to drive over the weighing plate.
On the general haulage side, he explains that the company also uses the weighbridge to get accurate tare weights for every vehicle and trailer. Information is recorded on a spreadsheet, so the traffic office can see which truck or tractor/trailer combination is best suited to a load when a customer phones in.
"The spreadsheet allows us to check instantly which vehicle is right for the job and to do so with confidence that it can handle the load within its gross weight limit," states Cartwright.
"This is helping us to use our fleet more efficiently and to respond much more quickly to customers," he adds.
"It's then just a case of sending an SMS message to the driver and the load can be collected. This also raises the comfort factor for our drivers who know that when they pick up a load there can be no doubt it will be legal in weight terms," he concludes.
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Author
Brian Tinham
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