How an Industrial Platform Scale can Cut your Costs
Few inventions have had such far-reaching impacts on our daily lives or been as disruptive as digital electronics and the internet. They have created benefits, opportunities and also challenges for both consumers and suppliers. Smartphones, tablets and similar devices have led to a market worth trillions in hard currency. However, perhaps the most notable change has been the decline in high-street shopping and cash transactions. Instead, warehouses and distribution centres respond to online orders, fulfilling them with the help of other digital devices such as an industrial platform scale, while banks and credit card companies claim a percentage of each sale.
Internet merchants operate in various ways. Some hold minimal stocks and rely on just-in-time ordering to purchase from manufacturers or wholesalers when necessary. Others strive to be more efficient by working from relatively small premises with just a few staff to minimise costs. However, most of the companies that trade online continue to maintain an offline presence. Whatever their chosen business model, selling goods via the internet requires careful cost management to ensure profitability. Installing an industrial platform scale can be a surprisingly effective way for an internet-based business to save money. Let’s take a look at how this works.
The Benefits of Digital Weighing and Dimensioning Technology
Some costs, such as rent for premises, are fixed and mainly beyond a business owner’s control. Wages can be kept to a minimum by automating. However, one area with considerable potential for savings is logistics, especially if you outsource your deliveries to a third party. Couriers base their charges on dimensional weight, which drives many cost-conscious companies to employ an industrial platform scale. So, what is this measurement, and how can a weighing machine possibly help you cut costs?
An Industrial Platform Scale is a Precision Weighing Devices
When you post an envelope containing anything other than a few sheets of paper, a post office official will first want to weigh it to calculate the delivery charge. If it is a large envelope, the official may treat it as a parcel and measure it before finalising the cost. The weighing machine used doesn’t require exceptional precision as a few grams more or less will make little difference to the postal charges. However, an industrial platform scale is necessary to measure objects weighing between five and fifty kilograms or more while also using laser sensors to measure an item’s dimensions, using software to derive the dimensional weight value required by a courier company. If repeated, even a relatively small percentage error can have a marked impact on a high-volume business’s delivery costs. Consequently, the leading manufacturers in this field strive to provide instruments that are accurate to within around 0,05 per cent to ensure the user significant savings.
The demand for large, big-ticket items is often limited, but that doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from owning an industrial platform scale. Given time, even a company with low throughput stands to benefit from this technology. An employee can load individual items on the machine manually as and when required knowing they will never again overpay to have their goods delivered. By contrast, a busy provisioning centre that handles the warehousing and distribution functions for multiple sellers can manage their exceptionally high turnover by feeding items to the machine with a conveyor belt, meeting their clients’ needs more efficiently and cheaply.
Nevertheless, many small businesses sell directly to the public from brick-and-mortar premises. A small bench-mounted industrial platform scale can help butcheries, fishmongers, greengrocers and delicatessens to sell their products by weight. The more accurate their weighing equipment, the more secure their profits will be and reassure their customers that they are getting their money’s worth. While some bench models may indicate the weight only, others can also calculate and display the sale price in parallel. There are even models that count the individual items placed on their platform. This form of industrial platform scale could be ideal for a hardware store that often sells small items by number rather than weight.
To sum up, weighing and dimensioning offer an effective means to help companies control their cost of sales. These savings can be especially significant in an increasingly cashless society where debit and credit card charges already take their toll on profits. Teraoka offers industries and business owners in South Africa a range of superior weighing equipment that has earned it the majority market share. Call or email us to learn more about our industrial platform scale range and other precision products.