Weighing individual loads, crates or shipments during the loading process allows operators to ensure that the vehicle is loaded evenly, allowing them to make real-time adjustments to ensure that the load is distributed correctly and safely. This can be achieved in a number of ways. Using a forklift scale allows items to be weighed in motion, allowing data capture as the items are loaded, and without slowing the process down. Shipments could also be weighed using a floor scale, or pallet scale, before being loaded onto the vehicle.
Overview
Using scales and weight applications when loading vehicles is critical for maintaining safety, compliance, efficiency and cost control in operations that require the transport of goods or sell by weight and fill directly into vehicles.
While the popular solution for weighing whole vehicles is to use a weighbridge system or axle weigher, weighing goods as they are loaded can also help operators to manage loads efficiently.
Discharging bulk materials, such as grain, sand, concrete, or aggregates, into vehicles requires exact weighing to ensure safety, commercial accuracy, and process control. Truck loading must be precise to prevent overloads, avoid regulatory violations, reduce material giveaway, and maintain operational throughput. Inaccurate fills can impact billing accuracy, compliance, and pose safety hazards. Avery Weigh‑Tronix’s vehicle-loading management systems, including weighbridges, load cells, and ZM indicators, deliver reliable legal-for-trade accuracy, real-time data and alerts to safeguard both goods and operators
Weighing goods as they are loaded helps to optimise the payload per trip, maximising vehicle efficiency and reducing transportation costs, while also avoiding the risk of overloading. For distribution companies that charge by shipment weight, using legal-for-trade weighing equipment means that the stored data can be used for invoicing purposes, ensuring that the costs are passed on to customers quickly and accurately.
Weighing bundled and palletised goods can be time-consuming. By using a forklift scale, large shipments can be weighed en route, without the driver diverting to a floor scale. The in-cab instrument’s wireless option can transfer accurate weight data in real-time to a back-office collection system, where it can be used for ongoing invoicing or verification of vehicle weights.
For businesses using discharge systems to fill vehicles with raw materials such as food and aggregates, there are several things operators must avoid including over‑fills, mis‑loads, and inaccurate batch breakdowns. Our ZM510 and ZM615 discharge application allows the operator to automate and control every fill – ensuring accurate, safe loading and full traceability.
Reducing giveaway with flexible, configurable control
The Avery Weigh-Tronix discharge application has been designed to meet the growing demands for accurate and fast discharging where time is money.
When used with Avery Weigh-Tronix ZM510/ZM615 Indicators, this application can be used for the filling of trucks, trains, and ships, and can be used for simple standalone stations or integrated into a larger automated process. Using the ZM510 or ZM615 weight indicators to empower flexible and configurable control of vehicle loading operations, the application supports fast or dribble filling heads, handles screw or conveyor feeders, and monitors safety gates and overflow conditions. Alarms – such as over‑weight or gate‑open faults, can be automatically configured to pause discharge to prevent errors.
Operators can follow clear on-screen prompts, tracking live weight progress and targeting fill values with fast and slow staging or tip-based control. The system offers both manual and automatic in-flight compensation, plus configurable tip size, PLU and scale totals, runtime targets, and retention options for sticky materials. What’s more, discharge data, including tip count, weight, error logs, scale totals, even per‑job PLU’s, is transmitted via Ethernet or serial to back‑office systems for traceability and performance analysis.
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