Viridor has turned to Vehicle Weighing Solutions Ltd (VWS) to provide a system producing precise payload data and a ticket for every load collected by Boughton Skip Loaders.

Gary Elms, Regional Vehicle and Plant Engineer for Viridor, said: 'Normally, we use under-body weighing but for this particular 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.'

Thy approached VWS who agreed to help. Boughton's Power-Reach Skiploader had been designed with all equipment 'locked down' on the chassis and limited space which made it too complex to incorporate under-body weighing equipment.

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.'

The load cell sends the 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.

Julian added: 'It's extremely accurate, doesn't affect the lifting mechanism whatsoever and we can retrofit vehicles very easily.'

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.'