Inventory Monitoring
If your company or business sells physical goods, then inventory monitoring is undoubtedly an important aspect of your day-to-day operations. But are your inventory monitoring processes as efficient as they could be?
Below, we’ll explore how weighing devices can be incorporated into an inventory monitoring system to increase efficiency, saving your business both time and money. You’ll also learn about the benefits of using a multi-point weighing system for load monitoring and overload prevention during inventory monitoring.
But first, just what exactly is inventory monitoring?
What is inventory monitoring?
inventory monitoring is a crucial aspect of any business that sells physical goods. It is primarily concerned with the ordering, storing, transporting, and selling of both raw materials and finished products. In other words, it’s how a business keeps track of everything it has in stock.
The importance of accurate inventory monitoring can’t be overstated. Not only does it allow a business to fulfill customer orders on time by ensuring its products are in stock, but it’s also a big part of the manufacturing aspect of a business. By accurately tracking raw materials needed for manufacturing, businesses will know when and how much of particular parts and items they need to order.
It also helps to avoid stockouts, reduces costs, and improves cash flow.
However, it can be challenging, especially if you have complex supply chains, multiple locations, or volatile demand. That’s why it’s crucial for every business to incorporate the best tools, methods, and practices available.
Lifting and weighing in inventory monitoring
Every business will have a different approach to how it manages its inventory, and this will depend upon a variety of factors.
When it comes to using weighing devices, the primary consideration is the size of the items being monitored. For smaller parts and components such as those found in the electrical industry, you’d need a scale of appropriate size. But if your inventory includes larger pieces of equipment, you may need to incorporate a crane scale, load cells, or dynamometers into the process.
Devices such as these can be used to measure the weight of both larger individual items (typically weighing at least a few pounds) and to monitor shipments of both part and whole products.
Shipment weighing, as part of an inventory monitoring process, has several benefits including cost reduction, efficiency, and safety.
Monitoring the weight of shipments using a crane scale takes advantage of the lifting that already takes place during loading and unloading. Knowing the weight of an incoming shipment lets you verify that it matches the supplier’s reports, allowing you to address any discrepancies immediately rather than after the fact. Couple this with the added bonus of overload prevention—an important safety concern—and using load cells becomes an obvious choice.
Wired vs. wireless load cells
Now that you’ve seen the benefits of incorporating lifting and weighing into your inventory monitoring process, you’ll want to know more about the different types of weighing devices and their features.
While both wired and wireless load cells are available, when it comes to inventory monitoring, a wireless system will usually be the better choice.
For example, our Ron 2501 wireless dynamometers use radio frequency (R.F.) technology to transmit the signal between the load cell body and the remote display. This has several advantages such as:
- The operator has more flexibility
- Increased safety by eliminating the risk of cable damage or accidents
- Allows for additional readouts to be connected to a single system
Another factor to consider is which type of device you’ll need since the terminology isn’t always clear.
The primary difference between these terms is that both wired and wireless dynamometers and crane scales include a load cell as their main weighing and weight-bearing component. Crane scales include a lower hook and upper shackle attached to the load cell, while dynamometers have both upper and lower shackles. All systems have a remote or integrated display to show measurements and are available with either wired or wireless load cells.
Multi-Point Load Cells
Inventory monitoring can be a complex process, especially for large-scale operations with multiple lifting and weighing points operating simultaneously. And while simply using multiple systems could work, there is a better solution: a multi-point load monitoring and overload prevention system.
With a multi-point system, multiple load cells are seamlessly integrated into a single system. Instead of each lifting point giving a standalone reading, with multi-point load cells, all the lifting points are consolidated into a single readout—a real-time load cell map that can be displayed on a laptop, tablet, or even on a smartphone.
Having an integrated multi-point system provides a much more efficient solution to monitoring, collecting, and organizing data—all important aspects of inventory monitoring.
Our Ron StageMaster and CraneMaster multi-point load monitoring systems make use of a central radio receiver (CRR) to simultaneously receive signals from all lifting points. They range from small handheld portable receivers to large rack-mountable receivers that can display up to 200 load cells on a single load map.
Crane Scale Manufacturers
Whether you need a single crane scale or a large multi-point load monitoring system, you’ll want to choose a company with a long history of quality and safety. Few crane scale manufacturers fit this bill as well as Eilon Engineering who now has close to five decades of experience in the field.
Our multi-point systems have been used by high-profile aerospace companies like NASA and Boeing and by world-class touring shows such as Cirque du Soleil, Paul McCartney, and countless others.
Our decades of commitment to quality and safety have earned us customers from nearly every industry and a global reputation for excellence in the field of lifting during weighing.
Learn more about load monitoring with Eilon
If you’re interested in learning more about integrating a multi-point system into your inventory monitoring processes, get in touch today.
Call us:
US/Canada/Int'l: 1-888-778-8064
UK: 0800 8620354
Write to us at:
sales@eilon-engineering.com
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