"With the hand pallet truck scales we save at least eight man hours per week"

- JAN VERBERNE, MANAGER LOGISTICS

Counting parts

In the FLOS warehouse unbelievable amounts of different technical products are stored. Metal chains, cogwheels, rings, and countless other metal parts for which there isn’t even a name. All parts for office chairs, children’s car seats, but also for lorries. FLOS has these parts manufactured or adapted and supplies them to their clients. Parts orders at FLOS are often for huge numbers of a single product. Thousands of bolts, pipes or screws are sorted per article in crates. That’s how parts are received and FLOS wants to know whether their supplier delivers what he promises.

 

Incoming and outgoing shipments

Parts shipped by FLOS need to be counted too, since also the client wants to be assured that he receives what he is paying for. As FLOS guarantees 'just in time' delivery, it's of the utmost importance that shipments are error free. Therefore all parts in incoming and outgoing shipments need to be counted. Until three years ago all parts were counted by hand. Using a magnet, metal tubes, screws and other parts were lifted from the crate and weighed on a fixed scale. That was quite inefficient, as it cost a lot of time and the risk of errors was large. 'At a certain moment we had to go look for a piece of equipment that could do the counting for us. At first our managing director didn't go for it, but after I saw the RAVAS pallet truck scales at a show in Utrecht in 2002, I knew that this was what we needed.'

Pallet Truck scales raises handling speed and reduces risk of errors

The two hand pallet truck scales have proved their worth. Verberne: 'We check all deliveries. Suppliers know by now that we check everything by weight. They put more effort into making sure that the deliveries are correct.' Outgoing shipments are checked as well. It goes like this: you tare out the weight of the packaging and the pallet. You push the sampling button on the indicator to have the scale determine the piece weight per part. You take ten parts from the crate, the scale measures the weight decrease. Now the system can calculate how much one part weighs and it will show the number of parts in the crate on the display.

Less picking orders

FLOS uses the pallet truck scales in other departments as well. In order picking for example. The employee collects boxes of parts from the warehouse with a forklift truck. The pallet truck scale is loaded with a crate that has three compartments. Parts are being poured into one of the compartments, while the scale counts. When the first compartment is filled with the proper amount, the employee can tare out the complete weight and count different parts in the next compartment. Apart from increased picking speed and less picking errors, the added advantage is that you can ship different parts orders in a single crate, for a single client. Verberne: 'So you see why the pallet truck scales are really a great solution for us.'

Ravas Flos logo

 

COMPANY
FLOS creative component solutions


LOCATION
Veldhoven, The Netherlands


APPLICATION
Piece counting

 


Piece counting
By letting the pallet truck scale count for you, human errors are avoided and handling speed in order picking and in checking shipments is raised. Many companies specialize in the production of custom made parts and subsystems. Other companies use these in the assembly of their finished product. Material flows in supply chains mainly consist of parts shipments. Parts that are counted continuously: at order picking, shipping, at goods reception. Shipping the correct amounts is of major importance. The mobile scale translates the measured weight into a quantity, using the per part piece weight. This piece weight can either be entered manually or sampled automatically by the scale. The display shows the actual number of parts on the pallet and how many remain to be picked.

Subscribe now!

Subscribe to all RAVAS News now.