Winterizing The Scale House Tips

Winter is upon us, especially in the latitudes.  As temperatures drop, daylight shrinks and snow starts sticking to the ground, many ILS clients, especially in the Asphalt and Paving industries, are either cutting back hours or closing for the season.

Interface Logic Systems designs our products for long-lived reliability in harsh conditions, but leaving electronics and electro-mechanical equipment dormant and unprotected in freezing temperatures can result in problems over the long term.  If you are planning on scaling back significantly, or shutting down until the first robin sings, you can take some simple precautions to prevent surprises, delays or avoidable expenses when spring arrives:

1)      Your ScaleQ PC should not be stored in an unheated location for long periods.  We recommend that you bring it inside for the winter.  Remember to label all cables and connections for a quick and simple return to service!

2)      Printers should be removed from their scale side enclosures or the scale house and stored indoors, as well.  Removal and re-installation of these printers should be fast and easily accomplished:  Just disconnect the power and data cables from the back of the printer, batten down the empty enclosure and tuck the printers where you can find them.

3)      Consider scheduling an ILS Technician on site for a Start Of Season Maintenance visit.  He can assist with returning the hardware to service, test all systems for proper operation and correct any problems that may have occurred.  For ILS Extended Support clients, the latest in-version updates of the ScaleQ, ScaleQ Report and ScaleQ Manager programs can be installed at this time, as well.

These simple precautions will go a long way to ensuring a fast and easy return to operations when spring, and business opportunities return.  As always, if you have any questions, or if we can be of any assistance at any time, don’t hesitate to give us a call.

A Report Isn’t Just A Report: It’s a powerful tool to manage your business

A good report system not only provides vital information for your executive, administrative, accounting and operations staff but also helps build relations with every one of your customers.

In difficult economies it is more critical than ever to understand every aspect of your business.  Having a good reporting tool, like ScaleQ Report Generator is essential to running your operation as efficiently as possible.

Have you wanted to know exactly how much product you are selling and which customers are buying the most?  You can have this information at basically the touch of a button.

Have you ever had one of your Customers request specific information that took you a tremendous amount of time to gather?  With a good reporting module you can easily design reports to fit your customer specifications and have it run automatically so they can have their reports daily, weekly or monthly sent by email.  All you have to do design it!

Did Accounting call you today and ask you for your daily sales?  Your accounting department will not have to ask anymore.  You can design your reports to download into Excel and have it emailed directly to the requester.

Going Green In Your Community

Going green is important in every industry these days. ILS provides scale management software for the trucking and recycling industries and know how important it is for our clients and our planet.

In our scale system software we provide tools that allow you to email or transmit sales transaction to the main office all without the need of printing reports. You can do this as often as you like and runs automatically without user intervention. All this is running in the background for you.

Here in Columbus, Ohio we work with  a large solid waste facility that converts landfill gas to compressed natural gas for use in their fleet vehicles and medium duty trucks. We love it! They are turning trash into gas!

Every bit helps. What is your community doing to go green?
Visit our website to see about our recycling scale management software.
http://www.interfacelogic.com/recycling.htm

Where Is Your Money Going?

Being in the weighing industry for over twenty-five years we know the importance of your Return On Investment or ROI. The scale house is the center of your business.
Protecting your scale house is more important than ever in this economy. Ask yourself these questions. Is unattended for me? Can we run trucks through more efficiently? Do I track job costs & quotas accurately? 

Improve your bottom line by automating your scale house functions.

Remote Data Terminals (RDT) will allow truck drivers to either scan a card with a bar code or enter their truck code to start and finish the transaction.
One convenient feature is to have a Remote Ticket Enclosure next to the RDT. Drivers do not have to exit their vehicle to receive a ticket. Just grab and go!
Signature pads can also be installed at the counter or at the RDT in a sealed weather-proof enclosure.
RF Readers and trucks equipped with RFID tags can be processed without help from the scale house personnel.  This functionality allows you to run without the additional labor costs.
It’s features like these that help run trucks through faster letting you and the driver get on with business.
ScaleQ Software can automatically track jobs for you. By assigning a job, the system can keep track of your material & hauling charges. You can also assign catalog pricing according to your customer structure which in turn automates the process for you. The scale system will tell you when you’ve reached your quota so you can pull that truck and assign it to another job. The program will keep track of everything for you, giving you a more cost effective process and may eliminate manually tracking your job cost.  This also helps you keep track of truck or load turn-around time.
Do you need more information? Ask us how we can improve your ROI.

Top 10 Tips To Prevent Scale House Down Time

Anyone who’s ever worked in a scale house knows what it like to have trucks backing up and your system is down. Sometimes that can’t be helped but we’ve listed the top 10 tips to help prevent your scale house from down time. 

1)      Save time by keeping up on maintenance! Clean your computer. Dust builds up in your computer and needs blown out occasionally. PC’s live longer if you blow them out. You can take your  case apart to do this but that is not always necessary. Just taking a can of air and spraying into any fans, vents and holes in the case will go a long way.

2)      Make sure there is enough air flow around your computer. It’s important to make sure you’re not blocking the fans on your PC’s. The airflow keeps your computer cool so it doesn’t over heat.

3)      Label your cable! Make sure all your cables are labeled properly and plugged in. Chances are a loose cable may be your problem. Properly labeled you can quickly identify the cable and plug it in the without having to track down where it goes. Saving you a lot of time!

4)      Get off to a good start! Set up your system properly from the start. Make sure you follow all set up procedures properly and this will help you in the long run and decrease the troubleshooting time.

5)      Shut your PC down properly. Use the proper procedures for shut down.

6)      Power source is important! Make sure you have a good power source. We know some scale houses are in rural areas with unreliable power so use a UPS (uninterruptible power supply). It’s always a good idea to use a UPS in any environment and will keep you from problems down the road.

7)      Back it up! Back up your data. It’s a good idea to back up your data at the end of every day. Even better, back it up twice a day.

8)   Keep it clean! Keep internet use to a minimum on the computer you use for your scale and office software. You could get a virus going to certain gaming and social sites.

9)  Key to success. Make sure your scale key is plugged in and secure at all times.

10) Location, location, location. When scale software updates are released make sure all locations install the latest executable.

If you have any question or need any help visit us online www.interfacelogicsystems.com