WEIGHING UP YOUR OPTIONS
When new SOLAS VGM rules were introduced in mid-2016, the priority of many shippers was to simply adopt a compliant container weighing solution to ensure containerised goods keep on moving. There was much uncertainty around how the rules would be interpreted and enforced, the range of container weighing solutions was limited, and in many cases, the systems adopted by shippers to weigh containers was not the most cost-effective or efficient.
Now, five years on from the rule change, examples of inefficient and non-compliant container weighing practices are still common leading to many shippers wasting valuable time weighing individual cargo items and calculating the VGM. Others are paying high fees to have containers hauled to an offsite weighbridge.
However, it's not all bad. There have been companies paving the way in the container weighing industry developing a range of new certified container weighing hardware and software solutions in order to help shippers and logistics firms meet the VGM rules.
From on-demand weighing services to portable container scales, there are many options that allow shippers to weigh containers and capture other valuable information at the pack point.
Now is as good a time as any for shippers to think about what it’s truly costing them to verify container weights, how compliant are they with the rules and what options are available to improve their weighing processes.
To help these operators, Bison has published an e-Book profiling the full range of solutions available for weighing laden containers outside of ports and terminals.
