Case Studies:4 - LTL
Case Study #4:
All in One On-board Freight Verification System
Taking Control of Freight Verification
For as long as LTL freight companies have been hauling product there has always been a lack of consistency between the shippers’ bill of lading and the actual weight of the load. For years this was seen as a cost of doing business because floor scales on the cross dock are just not practical because of the time it would take and need to move product quickly. A western Ontario LTL freight company specializing in cold storage food transportation wanted to see that change without impeding their business.
Weight and Dimension
With high volume product movement of perishable goods, time is of the essence. But with freight rates based on weight and dimension, understated shippers are lost revenue. This carrier decided that the first place to start was to put a custom-made height indicator at each dock to make sure that height coordinates were checked by the operator during the offloading procedure. But what about the length and width associated with the palleted load? What about the weight of the product to complete an entire assessment of how products are charged? Load Cell systems popular 10 – 15 years ago simply did not provide the R.O.I. that was provided at the time of the sale. The systems cost in excess of 9K per lift truck and quite simply did not stand up in material handling environments, let alone on the cross dock. Each time the truck goes over the cross-dock plate the variance becomes greater as the external technology is subject to the extreme force. Ultimately the variance is too great to be relied upon and weekly calibration is far too costly. Working with their material handling dealer the SkidWeigh ED3-LTL was proposed.
One Goal – One System – One Solution
With the height already taken care of this carrier required a reliable to solution to capture all required freight data, easily against the waybill of the load. Even more important was the ability to serve that data when ready for admin cross checking for the purposes of re-billing. The SkidWeigh ED3-LTL utilizes an LTL transportation software process that starts with scanning the product barcode. The operator does not have to enter cumbersome numbers with the potential to make a mistake. Scanning the barcode automatically registers the load and then prompts the operator to ‘Lift Load’ collecting the weight. The next step is to toggle to the appropriate pallet size, 8 standard CPC pallet sizes are provided for the operator to choose. Finally, a height reading taken from their own measurement source is entered to complete the data collection process. At the end of each shift a USB is used to collect all the measurements collected and sent to admin for reconciliation. On average each truck was earning between $1,100.00 and $1,500.00 per day. With 11 trucks in their terminal there R.O.I. $15,000.00 per week. The SkidWeigh ED3-LTL is easy to install at approximately 2 hours. Does not de-rate the truck and or alter lifting capacity of the vehicle. At a fraction of the price of other systems it also does not require on going calibration as SkidWeighs proprietary hydraulic technology measurement provides best in class accuracy.
LTL Freight Weight Verification & Revenue Increase
Detection and Correction of Under Declared Freight Weight
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