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time-consuming. Further, many of the locations that use these
scales—for example, gravel pits, coal mines, power plants,
train yards, etc.—are located far from urban areas, so getting
a local area technician to the site can require hours of travel.
SOLUTION
“My [CradlePoint] CBA250 [Cellular Broadband Adapter]
plugs into the Ethernet RJ-45 port of the scale. Using its
mobile broadband connection, the CBA250 makes the scale
accessible to me over the Web,” says Stephan. “It’s as if I was
right there at the scale with a laptop. Only I’m not. I’m sitting
in the comfort of my office with all the resources I need.”
The first few weeks of operations of a new industrial scale are
when most patches and upgrades to the custom software
typically occur. “Before I started using the CradlePoint, I’d
have to contract with a skilled service technician to go out
to the site,” explains Stephan, “and you don’t want to know
what service companies are charging per mile. Then once the
tech got to the site, he would connect his laptop to the scale’s
Ethernet port and then we’d troubleshoot together, with
me on the phone talking him through the diagnostics or the
upgrade. It was tedious and frustrating process.”
With the CBA250, Stephan no longer has to dispatch a
high-cost technician to the site. “Pretty much anyone that can
drive a car can do the job,” say Stephan. “They just plug the
CBA250 into the RJ-45 port and then step back while I do the
troubleshooting or upgrade the software remotely.”
There are two areas where Stephan plans to expand his use
of the CBA250. “Instead of waiting for feedback to come in
on new installs and then reacting with a service call,” explains
Stephan, “we’re going to partner with folks like Dean Smith of
D&G Scale and proactively attach a CBA250 with an air card
to the scale for the first few weeks, so we can immediately
tweak and adjust as issues come up.”
That leads to the third scenario. “A lot of these scales are
in outbuildings or remote sites that are far from any kind of
network. Yet owners and managers need the data from the
scale for accounting and operational purposes. So they send
a person out to the scale once a day or once every other day
to collect print outs or download information. Well, that’s really
inefficient. But to run fiber to the scale or set up a point-to-
point wireless bridge costs $5,000 to $30,000, so no one is
going to spend that.”
But with a CradlePoint CBA250 Cellular Broadband Adapter
attached to the scale (about $180), plus the cost of an air
card (about $240) and a monthly mobile broadband account
(about $55), a main office can access that data for a fraction
of what it would cost to connect using conventional means.
“The savings are tremendous, whether in terms of installation
cost, or even the cost of driving back and forth to the scale
all the time. Also, some companies rely on the paper tickets
printed out by the scales to track load weight, time of
weighing, etc. Well, drivers can lose tickets pretty easily. But
you can’t lose data that you’re pulling directly from the scale
onto your computer. Plus it eliminates manual keystroking
that’s just wasteful.”
BENEFITS
•Easy. “The CBA250 is foolproof,” Stephan reports. “You
plug it in and it just works. No set up. No reset button. It’s
perfect for those isolated areas where there’s no IT help
within a hundred miles.”
•Reliable. “I’ve never had a problem,” declares Stephan.
“Not one instance.”
•Money-saving. “The CBA250 puts me and my software
programmers right inside a scale…for a fraction of the
cost of actually traveling to the site,” notes Stephan.
•Pervasive. “There is almost no industrial scale site
that doesn’t have some sort of mobile coverage,” says
Stephan. “If you can make a phone call, you can send
and receive data. All I have to do is ask the locals which
mobile service to use in what location and they know.”
•Affordable. “Even if it was $500, it would be worth it,”
says Stephan. “But $180 is even better.”
Stephan sums up his plans for using CradlePoint solutions: “If
I can sit at my desk and make a two-line code change in two
minutes that solves a customer’s problem, versus spending
hundreds of dollars on an on-site visit, that’s a huge benefit for
me and my customers.”
“The CBA250 is foolproof. You
just plug it in and it works. I’ve
never had a problem.”