Gary Elms, Regional Vehicle and Plant Engineer, Viridor said: “We approached Julian and he agreed to design a solution for us.  Under normal circumstances we use under-body weighing, but for this sewage waste contract, the customer needed to know exactly what was being collected from each site and each load, so we needed a different approach.”

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VWS got in touch with specialist vehicle engineering company Boughton Engineering Ltd and exchanged drawings.  Boughton’s Power-Reach Skiploader has been designed for ultimate durability with all equipment ‘locked down’ on the chassis and limited space; therefore  making it too complex to incorporate under-body weighing equipment.

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Julian Glasspole, Managing Director, VWS Ltd said: “We have been designing and manufacturing load cells and vehicle weighing equipment for over 25 years, so this was right up our street and we were more than happy to help out.  We didn’t want to take up any more space on the existing lifting block so decided to incorporate a load cell into the top of the lifting arm.  We engineered our weights and measures approved T95 load cell, which is used in our axle weighbridges, to be able to be used for skip weighing.”

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The T95 load cell has built in electronics that send the recorded weight data wirelessly to a hand held device kept by the vehicle operator.  The operator can then wirelessly print out a ticket inside the cab.  The equipment also helps to ensure that the vehicle isn’t overloaded.

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Continued Julian: “It’s extremely accurate, doesn’t affect the lifting mechanism whatsoever and we can retrofit vehicles very easily.”

Founded in 1897 Boughton Engineering Limited is responsible for the Boughton Power-Reach Skip Loader that was launched in 2013 with a fully integrated and revolutionary Intacova sheeting system.

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Rob Brandon, Sales Manager (South), Boughton Engineering Ltd said: “We enjoyed working together with VWS to satisfy our customer requirements and the customer has already reordered another three vehicles, so it was a successful partnership.”

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VWS belongs to a family of complimentary British companies known collectively as AW.co.uk specialising in the design, manufacture, installation and servicing of load cells, weighing and traffic monitoring systems.