The Advancing Automation of the Scale House
THEN
Purchasing scrap metal has traditionally been a cash-based business, especially at the retail level. Peddlers and other small generators wished to be paid in cash, and scrap companies that wanted to earn their business developed cash-based systems and procedures.
Before the personal (or small office) computer became common, retail scale transactions generally were made with scale tickets that were filled out by hand by the scale manager before being taken to the cashier. These tickets were then filed or recorded in many ways.
"Years ago, we had these forms with [paperboard] backing and carbon paper and we embossed a hard ticket and a light ticket," recalls Mark Leder of Leder Brothers Co., Minneapolis. Carbon paper was also part of the scale book, according to Leder. "These scale books were available through stationery houses, and each page had two layers with removable carbon paper in between," he recalls.
"Everything was on paper and manual and everything had to be reconciled manually," says John Bianculli of Ocala Recycling Inc., Ocala, Fla.
The 1970s and 1980s saw carbon paper start giving way to computer systems. Often, though, this technology came later to the scale house and cashier’s office.
Ken Grube and Phil Cuba of Transact Payment Systems, St. Petersburg, Fla., have been marketing automated systems (including automatic teller machines, or ATMs) since 1996 and have seen a wide range of automation (or a lack of it) at recycling yards throughout North America.
"Carbon paper was much more common just a few years ago," says Grube. "And some companies had elaborate schemes with different colored tickets for different days to verify that a ticket had just been brought over from the scale house."
In terms of collecting, storing and retrieving transaction information—and creating comprehensive reports—the differences are hard to describe briefly. "Back then, if a manager wanted a report, it became someone’s project and they spent three days working on it," says Cuba.
NOW
Each year, Recycling Today presents a feature story on recycling-specific software and computer systems, and each year there are several new products to introduce.
Initially, software focused on the roles of commodity traders and plant managers, but much of the recent effort has been targeted toward the "front lines" employees at the scale house.
Comprehensive recycling software providers, such as 21st Century Programming, Systems Alternatives International and several others, offer transaction and inventory tracking systems that start at the scale house and follow commodities through to their consuming destinations.
For Bianculli of Ocala Recycling, a hardware and software system from 21st Century Programming means, "Everything is in the system—all the tickets are electronic and all the scales are attached to the system."
Grube and Cuba note that one of the keys to creating systems that could be widely adopted considered the role of the scale house. "Early computer systems were mostly text or DOS-based, with a lot of keyboarding and data entry," notes Grube. That was not necessarily a good fit with scale house operators with knowledge of metals but with no inclination to improve their words-per-minute typing skills. "A keyboard could be too intimidating for some of our scrap customers."
Touchscreens—similar to those used to record sales at fast food restaurants—have proven to be an ideal remedy.
Many current systems capture the touchscreen scale house information and allow it to be transferred electronically to the cashier, or let the scale house operator create an ATM card that the seller takes over to the on-site ATM.
Anti-theft compliance issues have been further forcing the issue of scale house automation and recordkeeping. Driver’s license scanning, photographic or video camera transaction recording and maintaining a detailed transaction database have become important considerations to stay on the good side with law enforcement agencies.

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