Inventory Control

What is inventory control?

In today's competitive business landscape, effective inventory management plays a crucial role in optimizing productivity and profitability for businesses around the globe.

Inventory control is the systematic approach to managing a company’s inventory levels including its raw materials, components, finished goods, and products. It involves tracking inventory levels together with orders, sales, and deliveries to prevent stockouts, overstock, and to efficiently manage storage costs.

Effective inventory control ensures that there is always enough stock on hand to meet customer demand while minimizing excess inventory. Modern inventory control systems usually make use of specialized software to monitor stock levels in real-time, while also forecasting demand.

Technological advancements have revolutionized the way businesses track their inventory, and weighing systems such a crane scale, load cell, or dynamometer have become a big part of that.

Below, we’ll explore the benefits of integrating weighing systems into inventory control systems and look at how they help streamline inventory management processes.

The role of weighing systems in inventory control

Accurate inventory control is essential to minimizing operational costs, avoiding out-of-stocks, and preventing discrepancies in supply chain management. Weighing systems such as crane scales, load cells, and dynamometers offer businesses an easy solution to accurately track and control their inventory.

They provide an efficient means of verifying the weight of incoming and outgoing goods, ensuring that inventory levels remain consistent. By integrating these devices into warehouse operations, businesses can save time and mitigate risks associated with improper weight documentation. And due to their high accuracy, advanced weighing systems enable companies to monitor and verify their records of incoming and outgoing stock.

Weighing systems also help ensure onsite safety by preventing overloads during the transport of stock, and during stock storage. But it’s not just about safety—knowing the precise weight of your total stock and how it’s distributed can also help optimize storage capacity.

Weighing systems complement traditional inventory tracking methods and when used together, they offer superior accuracy and efficiency by detecting possible discrepancies in inventory records. Such discrepancies can arise from theft, damage during transit, or inaccuracies in supplier shipments. By promptly identifying these issues through accurate weight measurements provided by weighing systems, inventory control personnel can take necessary remedial actions and ensure optimal inventory levels at all times.

But not all weighing systems are appropriate for inventory control. Besides the obvious of using a digital rather than an analog system, in most cases you’ll want to use a wireless load cell as well.

Using a wireless system will be much more efficient compared to using a wired one. Wireless systems allow for much quicker and more efficient installation while also increasing safety by eliminating the risk that onsite cables pose.

Wireless dynamometers or other type systems also increase safety by allowing operators to remain at a safe distance. For example, Eilon Engineering systems feature a standard wireless transmission range of up to 1 km or ⅔ mile with even longer optional ranges.

Wireless load cells are a much better choice for inventory applications than their wired counterparts.

Multi-point load cells for inventory control

Digital vs. analog and wired vs. wireless aren’t the only choices you’ll have to make when considering a weighing system for inventory management. Single-point vs. multi-point load cells is another consideration.

While a single-point system might seem like the default choice, a multi-point weighing system can be even more effective in many applications such as warehouses, manufacturing plants, or even retail businesses. By using a multi-point system, businesses can automate and streamline the process of tracking, monitoring, and managing inventory. Here are some advantages of using multi-point load cells:

Integration of all lifting points: Having multiple lifting points integrated into a single system allows multiple lifting operations to be conducted simultaneously while all the data is consolidated in one location. This is much more efficient than extracting data from a single-point system.
Continuous monitoring: A multi-point weighing system can continually monitor the weights of several inventory items.
Precision and accuracy: By using multiple weighing points, the system can achieve high precision and accuracy for each item or batch of items. This is particularly useful when inventory goods vary significantly in weight and need to be accounted for individually.
Flexibility: A multi-point system can integrate load cells of different sizes for maximum efficiency while lifting and weighing items of various sizes on a single job site.
Batch and lot tracking: Having multiple weighing points allows for easier tracking of batches or lots, ensuring that items can be tracked by their production dates, expiration dates, or any other relevant batch information.

By employing a multi-point weighing system with these functionalities, a business can ensure accurate inventory records, minimize loss, improve order accuracy, reduce labor costs, and enhance overall operational efficiency.

Crane scale manufacturer

There are many crane scale manufacturers in today’s market. But few have the combination of proven wireless load cell technology, multi-point lifting and weighing expertise, and decades of experience in the field that Eilon Engineering has.

Eilon Engineering has been a leading manufacturer of crane scales, load cells, and dynamometers for close to five decades. Since 2005, we’ve led the field of multi-point load monitoring with our Ron StageMaster and Ron CraneMaster systems.

For example, our Ron CraneMaster multi-point system is regularly used on the joint NASA/Boeing Starliner spacecraft. This system combines four Ron Crane Scales and was used to join the upper and lower half of the Starliner’s capsule. Further, the system is still regularly used to transport the craft.

Our multi-point systems come complete with proprietary software that seamlessly combines all lifting points onto a single real-time load map, for easy and continuous load monitoring.

And with a variety of central radio receivers available, our systems are sure to meet the needs of any multi-point lifting and weighing application.

Get in touch today

Learn more about how Eilon Engineering systems can help enhance inventory control in your business.

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