For timber truck drivers, measuring timber can be an inaccurate process, often a degree of guesswork is involved. With the advances in digitalization, now they can record accurate measurements with a simple photo.
Timber is frequently measured on timber trucks transporting logs to numerous destinations. The team have received feedback from our partners that, from the 1990s, when typically in harbors and in log yards every 4th truck was referred to as the the bonus “measurement results“ of the three previous ones. This “extra bonus” created a “gray market” and deep mistrust between the selling and buying parties.
Timber measurement is complicated, and demands years of experience and knowledge in getting a near accurate result. The situation began to change with the introduction of the electronic waybill system. By utilizing the electronic waybill system, an opportunity arose to replace the mandatory paper-waybill, thus improving the exchange and quality of data transfer between timber trading parties. Yet despite this utilization, there remains a constant debate regarding the accuracy of the pile density coefficient and the timber truck weight.
Timber truck drivers have a huge task because they need to load according to the weight limits on the road travelled; but want to add as much as possible to optimize their transportation costs. The usual error rate of 5-10% may mean significantly heavier load than permitted on the roads and could cause a loss of their driving licence, and worse, accidents.
Thankfully there is a solution for this. Timbeter was designed to aid timber truck drivers. Simply measure your load’s pile density with Timbeter’s smart device app. The app provides you with the correct information regarding the volume that you can pass on to the driver and prevent dangerous overloading. Secondly, a digital footprint of the measurement is created to provide evidence of how much timber was initially loaded in the forest. This measurement can be given to the receiving party and thereby reduce disputes. Should there be a dispute in the timber amount being received – then the receiving party can simply re-measure the pile and check the digital measurements match, creating transparency for all.
This is why the Estonian State Forest Management Centre timber truck drivers now use Timbeter to determine the pile density coefficient. The data is forwarded to e-waybill and digital proof is available on every measurement. The logistics manager has a real-time overview of all measurements and assortments moving on the road. This process enables not only the correct pile density coefficient but minimizes disputes. It prevents situations, where a stronger party dictates the pile density coefficient and the subsequent weaker party cannot disagree for the sake of losing cooperation and custom.
Transparent measurement then, not only increases mutual trust between the partners, but provides accurate tracking and better safety for trucks on the road. Furthermore this digital information enables increased multifunctional data use when you need better reporting of your statistics.
In response to further feedback Timbeter is currently developing features that will empower users to be able to convert the log volumes into weight. So keep tuned for updates!
