Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or geological material from deep in the earth. To the thousands of men and women who work in the mining industry however, the majority of activity takes place above ground. In order to support the highly technical and complex exploration activities as well as produce and distribute the harvest, material handling plays a big part. One such operation fitting into this category is a California Ingot processing company that takes raw material and forms product to be sold to foundries for further processing.

Loading processed ingots is hard on all equipment, the forklifts as well as the trucks transporting them. Weight restrictions and overloading equipment are a common concern as order fulfillment changes with market demand. At the same time ensuring that load shipments are maximized require that all loads be weighed and measured for record, accuracy and safety. The management team was having difficulty finding a solution as manual counting was both unreliable and time consuming. Crane and floor scales were just not practical as the amalgamation of finished product moves through different staging areas. The only practical solutions it was concluded, was to weigh the product at time of shipment.

Not all solutions are complicated and the answer to this was even simpler than the management team had anticipated. Working with their local lift truck dealer we were able to showcase the SkidWeigh ED2E-ATEliteseries lift truck scale with the ability to add weights and reset. The SkidWeigh ED2E-AT fit on all 9 of their lift trucks regardless of mixed brands and did not deviate accuracy of +/-1% of lifting capacity over time, regardless of the harsh application.

The SkidWeigh ED2E-AT is able to provide them accurate weights at the time of loading transportation shipments meaning no delays in productivity. Even more impressive is the AT (Accumulative Totaling) function that allows them to weigh individual loads accurately and find out the total of cumulative shipments so that axel weight restrictions are complied with knowingly. The SkidWeigh ED2E-AT also connects via Bluetooth so that a quick and easy print receipt is on record for all shipments.

The dealer that sold the equipment was equally impressed at the ease of installation as they were able to average 2 hours per install over the 9 pieces of equipment. Once it was installed a simple process involving 5 minutes was all it took to calibrate the equipment and put it to work. The dealer’s job was done providing value to their customer. Simple for dealer means simple for the end user.