Why I Believe in SmartTruck Automated Weighing System – COURTESY OF GRAIN JOURNAL

COMPUWEIGH TRUCK SYSTEM IMPROVES SPEED AND EFFICIENCY

CompuWeigh Corp.’s SmartTruck is a sophisticated but easy-to-use automated truck weighing system that allows users to process more trucks in less time. SmartTruck combines longrange RF

cards, outside message boards, electronic photo eyes, video surveillance cameras, noise cancelling intercom systems, electronic signature pads, driver’s license readers, and a powerful computer system configured to the needs of the individual facility.

“The focus is on automating the whole process of truck weighing and loadout reducing scale ticketing errors and eliminating the need to employ staff anywhere other than the first point of contact, typically the probe station in a grain receiving application,” says CompuWeigh Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Tim Ciucci (203-262-9400).

Here is what some users say about the SmartTruck automated truck weighing system:

George Secor, President/CEO of Sunrise Cooperative, Inc. in Fremont, OH
“We’ve been using the SmartTruck system for nearly 10 years. When we installed it, I’m not so sure we were looking at the ROI as much as our customers’ time.

“The old fashioned way was, as trucks came onto the property, you had to probe them. When they got

to the inbound scale, someone would have to go out and talk to the drivers. When they weighed out, you had to talk to them again, or they’d pull over and come in. When you look at how much time our scales were tied up with communicating with the customer, we knew we had to find a way to make the process more efficient. They actually want to get on and off our property faster than we want them to.

“Don’t get me wrong: it’s very efficient for our company, because you talk to them one time, and it’s done. They pull up, tell you whose grain it is for the producer/split relationship and then you’re done. You probe them, and on the monitor tells them what their grade is and automatically tells them what pit to go to based on that day’s pit rules – as set in the system). Then, after they unload at the pit, they proceed to the outbound scale. In a couple of our cases, we can’t even see the outbound scale, because it’s so far away – and it weighs them out automatically based off the RFID badge.  They roll down the window to grab the ticket, and they’re off.

“We have lot of our customer owners whose dad or grandpa is driving, and they do not get in and out of a semi very well. With the SmartTruck system, they don’t have to get out of it at all. All they’ve got to do is roll down the window and tell us whose grain it is, what they want to do with it, and then before they leave, roll down their window again, and grab their ticket.

“Our employees do a great job, but any time you’re going to keystroke everything multiple times on one ticket, it increases the chance for error. With the seamless integration into our AgVantage software and CompuWeigh’s advantage, you only do it one time. As long as you picked that name and what you’re doing with the grain right, you don’t touch that ticket again, so it drastically decreases the amount of time we handle the ticket, it saves our employees time, and it decreases chances for error.”

Scott Althoff, General Manager of Alton Grain in Hillsboro, ND
“I’ve been involved with SmartTruck since about 2005. That’s when we installed it at the elevator where I was located at the time. Here at Hillsboro, we’ve had it since 2014.

“It’s been really good for our company:  it’s convenient, farmers like it, and it keeps things organized at the three dump pits and the truck scales. We’ve got two scales: inbound and outbound.

Trucks pull up to the probe, and it scans the RFID card. The system brings up the name of last load hauled by that truck, the probe attendant confirms the correct producer/split relationship, and probes the load for grading. We’ve got the SmartView display board located at the inbound scale that, when we probe the truck and determine the grade factors, will tell them automatically what pit to go to after the weight has been captured.  And the guys at the unloading pit have all the grade information for each truck on a CompuWeigh dump pit computer.  They’re able to see all the information they need to make bin selection decisions including the commodity, grade factors, moisture, and protein.

“When we first saw the SmartTruck system, it just seemed like everyone was going to like this, especially the farmers.  We want to make it seamless and simple for the farmers to get through the facility.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever actually run the numbers on the ROI. It just speeds everything up so much, so the farmers and the elevator guys think it’s a good investment. Nobody would want to go without it, now that they’ve had it.

“CompuWeigh has always been good to work with. They’ve got a good support team, so if there’s any problems, we call them up and get logged in. The programmers can usually work through pretty much anything either over the phone or by logging into the system.”

Todd Erickson, General Manager of Finley Farmers Grain & Elevator Co. in Finley, ND
“We’ve been using the SmartTruck since 2016, so we’ve had it a couple of grain in six places. Before, the producer would just drive into town, and he had no idea where he was supposed to go.  We had lines from two different directions into some of our facilities, and it caused mass confusion for our customers. This system just brought law and order to that.

“Another big driving factor was centralized grading. One set of eyes graded everything, so it’s helped us be more consistent.

“I don’t think you can quantify our ROI, but I think customer satisfaction went up, because they never had to wait in line, and they had law and order about where they were going. They were directed to a place where they thought the line was the shortest. If we’re looking at ROI, our volume is around 14 million bushels. Five years ago another rail loader was built 10 miles down the road, and we haven’t lost any volume.

“We installed longer scales at the same time, and we had a couple older facilities where they were split weighing, so it’s unattended, and you don’t have to be there. Our guys can dump trucks faster, because they don’t have to be grading grain at the same time. They know what’s coming at them because each dump pit control room has a CompuWeigh dump pit computer. They can prepare for it, and put it in the right bin at the right place. We basically don’t have truck lines any more.”