Five checks that catch a short load at the weighbridge

At most asphalt plants, the weighbridge is where money changes hands without anyone counting it. Trucks come in loaded, leave empty, and a ticket is printed. Used well, that ticket is one of the strongest controls you have. Used only as a receipt, it’s just paper.

These five checks are worth making on every ticket.

1. Net weight against the delivery note

This is the obvious check, and the one most often skipped. Agree a tolerance with each supplier in writing, and flag anything outside it before the truck leaves. If a load is short, ask the driver to sign for the shortfall there and then.

2. Empty weight against the truck’s history

Every truck has a usual empty weight. A reading well above it can hide a short load, because the net weight still looks right. Keep a history for each plate number and compare every reading against it.

3. A weigh-out for every weigh-in

A truck that was weighed in but never weighed out leaves an open question: did it leave full, empty or not at all? Close every ticket, every shift.

4. One note, one ticket

A delivery note should be used once. If the same note number appears on two tickets, especially with the same supplier and the same weight, stop and ask why.

5. Output against target

At the end of each shift, compare material in with asphalt out, and both with the day’s target. A plant that keeps falling short of target on the same inputs is telling you something.

Making it routine

None of these checks is hard. The hard part is making all five on every ticket, every shift, including at two in the morning.

That’s the kind of work software should take off your hands. Pivora’s weighbridge already flags a weight that can’t be right, the same delivery recorded twice, a load bigger than what is left on its order, and weighing times that don’t add up, and it tells the people responsible.