A load cell manufacturer from Saskatoon has customers from a variety of sectors, but is particularly interested in courting farmers.
Since its inception in the early 1980s, Massload has been primarily focused on using the technology in truck scales and linking it to software and display systems.
However, president Larry van den Berghe said agriculture remains a developing area for the company.
“(It’s) not a big product area, but our big focus right now is on the grain weighing segment,” he said of the axle pad systems that the company designs and manufactures.
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Trucks drive onto the scale pads that have load cells that determine the weight on each axle and then deliver a total weight for the load.
The scales can be placed on the ground, allowing them to be moved around, or can be installed permanently in a pit.
He said more than half of the company’s business is within Canada, with most of the rest in the United States.
“The States used to be a lot bigger market for us, but economically they’ve been suffering since 2008,” said van den Berghe, an Australian engineer who bought Massload five years ago.
“Since then, we’ve been working on transforming the company both in terms of capabilities and engineering and new products and so forth.”
The company, which employs 23 people, has invested in the design and testing process to ensure greater accuracy from its products, which are individually tested.
It says its axle pad scales weigh accurately to within 0.25 percent in temperatures as low as – 40 C.
“We’re doing huge investment in terms of that capability and ultimately to be able to bring out superior products into the marketplace,” said van den Berghe.
However, it’s not alone in the marketplace. The company faces competition from less expensive imported products, as well as devices that are already on farms, including built-in scales on grain carts and air seeders,
Van den Berghe sees growing potential for on-farm axle pad scales as farms grow larger, providing producers with another way to weigh crops before they go to market or into storage, check seed drill rates and input receipts and guard against overweight fines.
Rick Atkins, head of Alberta Agriculture’s technology and innovation branch, said he isn’t surprised by Massload’s diversification into agriculture.
“Yes that’s common. You want to try to diversify and expand their client base or eventually their product line,” he said.
“It’s a natural progression. The ag market is not real large that way and I think there’s a fair bit of competition in this area as well.”
Atkins said these kind of systems may hold greater appeal to larger producers selling grain, seed or cattle directly off the farm.
“The thing is when you’re weighting things off the field, most of the combines have grain monitors anyways so you know how many bushels were offloaded there,” he said.
“I think we’re looking at a duplication of systems there.”
Van den Berge said the company has already sold one of its units to a large corporate farm on the Prairies.
Massload’s products offer dual and tri-axle weighing. A fully automated system able to weight triple axle B-trains costs about $15,000.
“I think we’re just scratching the surface,” he said. “We’re not penetrating the agriculture market in a huge way yet.”
