There are several reasons why you want to ensure your trucks are being weighed on properly working truck scales. One way to ensure that truck scales are in good condition is by conducting regular preventative maintenance, including thanks to your CMMS (computerized maintenance management solution).
Preventative maintenance is important because it increases the life of the scales and improves productivity. Other advantages include increased savings, increased system efficiency, and minimal downtime.
4 Essential Preventative Maintenance Tips
1. Inspect Regularly
Dust, ice or debris can cause the weighing readings to go off by a few divisions or hundreds of pounds. This is why you must regularly inspect the weighing scales. The frequency of the inspection should correspond to how often the truck scale is used. If you use the truck scales every day, check them daily.
Pay attention to the parts around the truck scale to check if they rub or lean against it. Check if there is any corrosion of compounds such as end bumpers and gap covers. You might want to rely on your CMMS while doing that: simply create checklists to make sure you don’t forget anything.
Mobility Work CMMS allows operators and technicians to be autonomous: task creation, maintenance plans, notifications for every new activity…
Start the inspection with a check of the entire platform surface area and the space between the scale and the ground. Remove all the debris like leaves, dirt, stones, etc., when you check for damage. Inspect for the overall condition, clearance, grounding, safety issues, and electronic components and wiring too.
2. Balance and Calibrate the Scales
When heavy trucks drive up on a scale quite frequently, the scales are likely to be subjected to a lot of pressure and wear and tear. This means that even the smallest piece of debris on the scale can cause incorrect measurements. This is why you must balance the scale after cleaning or debris removal.
Read also: Preventive Maintenance : 6 Elements Of A Successful Program
Once that is done, perform a calibration check of the scales. This helps in ensuring that the weighing results are always accurate. Regular truck scale calibration must be done. Consider different factors to determine the frequency of calibration. These include acceptable error rate, number of weight measurements per day, and the number of days the scale is used annually.
3. Clean the Scales Regularly
Most of the scales are installed in the open, mounted on a concrete foundation or are pit-mounted. So, if you don’t clean them regularly, there will be a debris build-up. These foreign bodies will contribute to the improper function of the scale.
Keep the entire scale clear of debris, including the deck, junction boxes and underneath the scales. Most people forget to clean underneath the scale where a lot of debris stays hidden and affect the readings.
Use a broom or hose to remove the debris from the top, sides and under the scales. Apart from debris, make sure you check for water pooling around pit-mounted scales and remove it.
4. Schedule Professional Inspection
Perform daily inspections of the scales and basic scale maintenance. Hire a professional to do a thorough inspection and clean the truck scale or repair them as required.
You can use a CMMS to schedule and keep track of the timely preventive maintenance of scales. You can set up time, usage or condition-based triggers. This will alert you when it is time to do truck scale maintenance.
Organize maintenance teams’ workday thanks to the agenda in your mainteance management platform
The concerned technicians will be alerted of the new work orders and they can see important details like repair histories and maintenance checklists. They can mark their maintenance job as complete and switch the status of an asset. Even the managers will be notified of the completed preventative maintenance work orders and they can use them in the reports when they need to.
To Conclude
If you use truck scales in your facility, make preventative maintenance a priority and a habit. If you don’t, the truck scales may start showing incorrect results. This will affect the weighing measurement accuracy, thus affecting your overall profitability and business.
Author Bio:
Kevin Hill heads the marketing efforts at Quality Scales Unlimited in Byron, CA. Besides his day job, he loves to write about the different types of scales and their importance in various industries. He also writes about how to care for and get optimized performance from different scales in different situations. He enjoys spending time with family and going on camping trips.
