Speeding Up Our Receiving Department

When we realized that our shipping and handling department was slowing down production, I knew that I had to take action. Instead of leaving things as is, we decided to convert to a weighed systems, where we would count everything based on product weight. It was a big change, but we knew that it would dramatically speed things up. We invested in some high-end scales, and we had them installed the next day. Afterwards, our receiving and shipping department cut their times by half. This blog is all about using scales to improve your business, so that you aren't left wondering how to pay your employees.

How To Weigh An Elephant (Or Other Really Large Things)

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Weighing an elephant and other really large things is quite the trick. You already know that such animals and objects of similar size are extremely heavy, but what happens when you need to know exactly how much it weighs? How can you weigh an elephant to find its exact weight? If approximate weight is acceptable, how do you find that? In all cases, you can use the following.

The 48 Inch NTEP Floor Scale

This  is typically an industrial scale, but it will work in a pinch to weigh a full-grown elephant and it definitely works to weigh a baby elephant. To weigh an adult elephant, make sure the scale has first been tested and balanced by a weights and measures inspector from your state. Then have the elephant walk over the scale until his/her back feet are resting on the scale.

If your elephant knows how to rear up and hold position (like most circus elephants do) have the animal do so now. With all of its weight resting on its back legs on the scale, the digital screen will tell you exactly how much the animal weighs. For any other massive and heavy object, you will have to figure out how to get the entire object onto the scale.

Truck Weighing Scale

Another option is to take an elephant out to a truck weighing scale along a highway and carefully weigh the animal on this scale. Doing so may confirm the weight you got from the 48 Inch NTEP floor scale, or it may provide a more accurate weight if it turns out that the floor scale could not show a weight because the animal was greater than five tons. The truck weighing scale can weigh five or six times the floor scale, which makes it a good option for weighing any elephant that is over five tons.

The Elephant in Water Experiment

Back before there were such scales as those above, elephants were weighed using the water displacement method. A tank of water was filled with "x" number of liters of water. A collection ring was placed around the tank to collect the water that the elephant displaced when the elephant was lead into the tank. Then the displaced water was measured  by liters displaced, and the liters displaced multiplied by the weight of a liter of water gave you the weight of the elephant. Similarly, other extremely heavy objects of unknown weight have been weighed the same way.

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9 August 2018