BASF's port facility in Tarragona, Spain is one of the company's most important delivery and distribution hubs for raw materials, intermediates and finished products.

Greifensee, Zurich -- (SBWire) -- 10/23/2010 -- Trucks entering the facility are registered at the gate and provided with information including the weight and volume of the product to be received. When a vehicle is ready to be filled, it proceeds to one of two Mettler Toledo scales which are connected to Mettler Toledo weighing terminals. At this stage, drivers exit the truck and an operator secures the filling apparatus and grounds the vehicle to prevent sparks generated by static electricity. Since the entire Mettler Toledo weighing system is designed for use in Zone 1/21 hazardous areas, it will not spark even under failure conditions like broken cables.

The Profibus DP accurately transmits the truck's weight to a Siemens PLC in the control room. An operator simply presses a start button to initiate the filling process.

The PLC tares the scale and fills to the predetermined weight.

To provide real-time information, the Mettler Toledo scale rapidly tracks the weight change during the filling process. Working in conjunction with the PLC, the scale terminal automatically stops the filling process when the truck reaches the exact target weight, minimizing product loss caused by overfilling and eliminating product giveaway. The vehicle is also checked to ensure it complies with over-the-road weight limits as defined by European and Spanish laws. Accurate measurement is assured with routine calibration and the scales will not deliver different results even with temperature or product variation.

After filling, the driver re-registers at the gate. The actual fill weight has already been transmitted and printed on the final documents that accompany the truck, helping prevent data loss due to manual transaction errors.