Multiple Upgrades Improve Performance

When reliability is a primary concern, proven equipment is a worthwhile investment. One company has upgraded numerous vehicle scales at multiple sites, all with the same POWERCELL® PDX® technology.

This large industrial chemical producer operates numerous locations. They use truck and rail tankers to transport raw materials and finished goods. Vehicle weighing systems are used to check for proper filling of the tankers, ensuring that accurate values are used in business transactions and inventory.

One production site uses a truck scale, made by a different scale company, that was requiring regular service calls. Needing better reliability, the customer consulted their local METTLER TOLEDO Industrial Service team. Even though the scale was not made by METTLER TOLEDO, the team was able to upgrade the scale’s weighing components by installing advanced POWERCELL PDX load cells. The customer was pleased with the result, as frequent service calls are now a thing of the past.

Realizing that improved reliability could be a benefit to a truck scale at another nearby site, the company called on the METTLER TOLEDO team once more. Sure enough, this second truck scale benefitted from a POWERCELL PDX load cell upgrade with the same result. With only limited quarterly preventative maintenance, truck scale downtime has been essentially eliminated.

However, the customer had another challenge. Their rail operations used another scale company’s old mechanical lever scale to weigh rail tankers. With its antiquated lever technology and worn-out components, the scale was failing constantly. The scale, in its original form, was facing the end of its functional life.

After the success of the METTLER TOLEDO team in upgrading the two truck scales, the customer inquired about recommendations for their rail weighing needs. The customer wanted the same proven POWERCELL PDX performance in their rail scale. Fortunately, METTLER TOLEDO has recently released a 90-ton capacity version of POWERCELL PDX which is ideal for large rail weighing applications.

The team assessed the old rail scale and determined that they could extract the large mechanical components underneath, and replace them with custom engineered mounts for the new modern load cells. By simultaneously replacing the rails on the existing scale deck, the customer would get like-new performance at a fraction of the cost of a new rail scale. This combination of performance and value made the customer’s decision to upgrade the rail scale an easy one.

The conversion project was a large undertaking, with a subcontracted heavy lift crane employed to lift the massive scale deck and lever components underneath. However, the experienced industrial service team worked efficiently. The custom mounting hardware meant that little modification was needed to scale deck, saving time and cost. Finally, the scale deck was placed back in its original location, but this time atop a modern network of POWERCELL PDX load cells.

The customer now enjoys the same reliability and accuracy in truck and rail weighing equipment across multiple sites. With advanced performance in demanding applications worldwide, POWERCELL PDX load cells continue to prove themselves every day.