It’s a common observation: “Our trucks are full.” But don’t be fooled — 96% of haulers are running at least 5% under weight.

It’s an even more significant waste of money when you consider that most trucks tote goods at a fixed price, meaning that wasted space is wasted money.

One of the biggest roadblocks to filling trucks to the brim is inefficiency in assessing just how much of a load the vehicle can bear. Then, shippers need to examine factors like number of pallets, load configuration and even stack-ability.

Three steps that’ll help you address this problem:

• Just how much of a load can you put on that truck? The limit in 48 states is 80,000 pounds. Weigh your truck (empty) and determine the difference. This’ll give you a better estimate of the load weight you can carry.
• How accurate is your paperwork? Let’s say the bill-of-materials says the load should check in
  at 40,000, but the scale reads 38,000 pounds. Something’s wrong here. Determine what, and fix it.
• What’s the capacity of your trucks — and how close are you to it? One shipping company discovered one vehicle should carry an additonal 4,000 per load. The company made adjustments, and eliminated 10% of trips and saved $1,000 per week.

(The data was gleaned in June by surveying more than 860,000 trucks at weigh-in motion scales across the USA.)

Tags: capacity, load, shipping, truck