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Accurate load measurement is an important safety function for a broad range of industries, but what if reading the digital load indicator proves challenging? When procedures involve frequent handling of heavy loads, or even just loads close to machine capacities, an industrial dynamometer is essential. As requirements for load measurement devices become more complex, feature-rich analysis software also becomes necessary to facilitate more nuanced lifting and hoisting operations – and more important, protect your staff, equipment, and facility.
How to Select Load Measurement Software
As important as accurate load measurement devices are, so too is the ability to monitor functions from afar, interact with other digital devices, and analyze load measurements in granular detail. For these reasons and more, the right dynamometer software becomes indispensable to interpreting and monitoring load measurements while maintaining seamless integration with a facility's network.
Deciding on the right software for your digital load indicator requires carefully balancing a range of technical and workflow considerations, primarily:
- Compatibility with your dynamometer(s) and related devices
- Support for numerous accessories, including monitors, portable apps, and hand held displays
- Integration with other industrial software at your facility
- Networking functions, including real-time remote monitoring
- Time-saving and value-adding automation tools
- Calibration functions to maintain readout accuracy
- Diagrammatic tools for easy visualization
- User-friendly interface with a short learning curve
- Data-saving and -export functions for more versatile data analysis and reporting functions
- Relevance of data readouts with workflow and compliance dependencies
Further, be sure your dynamometer software vendor offers on-site setup, training, and ongoing support services. Where safety depends on highly advanced technical functions, you can never be too careful.
Safety Fundamentals of Load Measurement/Analysis Software
Given the primary purpose of load measurement devices is to meet safety regulations while protecting your workforce, it makes sense to pare down your regulatory requirements before begin comparing industrial dynamometer tools.
That's why it's imperative to reference the OSHA or CCOHS regulations affecting your exact location and industry. The following load measurement considerations should apply to a broad range of applications and serve as a good starting point in selecting the right digital load indicator software.
Matching Regulatory and Workflow Dependencies
Load measuring challenges can be highly varied, and it's imperative that load measuring functions don't themselves create unnecessary risks. Consider just several common difficulties safety managers and industrial technicians face while trying to get accurate readouts:
- Remote monitoring with networked digital load indicators is necessary to monitor distant suspended loads, as well as lifting/pulling operations in hazardous environments
- Load measurement software must support "calculation method[s] recognized by the industry," per OSHA 1926.1417(o)(3)(i)
- The measurement software should be sophisticated enough to detect when load-bearing machinery reaches its longest radius, where safe load capacities are lower (e.g., 1926.1417[o][3][ii] and 1917.46[a][1][vi])
- An industrial dynamometer may need to work effectively with separate capacity limiter devices and/or load moment indicators (as in the latter scenario)
- Even regardless of maximum lifting capacities, custom load thresholds are often necessary to perform equipment testing and maintenance functions – OSHA 1926.1417(s), for example, requires brake testing each time operators handle a load at 90% or more of the maximum line pull
- In general industry, OSHA 1910.179(k)(2) normally limits rated load tests to no more than 125 percent of a rated load, which is easier and faster using load testing software built around test calibration standards (including frequency response)
- The same section requires keeping test reports "on file" and "readily available to appointed personnel," making a user-friendly data management system very important
- Repetitive lifting of the same or similar loads involves equally repetitive analysis functions, which are much easier to do with streamlined data backup and export functions
- Mobile lifting operations (such as crawler, truck, and locomotive cranes) introduce many other variables that push the limits on how much complexity the digital load indicator software can handle
- The latter case is an example where rudimentary software can easily provide false readouts, providing a false sense of security
- Similarly, poor latency between the industrial dynamometer and its software could also lead to improper measurements
- Maximum software integration enables streamlined and automated function with powered platforms, which feature a wide range of wired and wireless control unit connectivity
Technical Standards Affecting Load Testing Analysis
These are just several examples where it's essential that every element of your load measurement system leaves no question about the veracity of your measurements. That's why load measuring safety and technical standards are often tightly correlated. Load calculations often invoke overlapping technical considerations from various standards organizations, primarily:
- American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
- American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
- ASTM International (formerly American Society for Testing and Materials)
- CSA Group (formerly the Canadian Standards Association)
Determining which technical standards are legal requirements vs. suggested best practice can be extremely involved and complex. Yet the most reliable physical and digital load measuring equipment is that which takes into account the widest possible range of both regulatory and technical standards.
These standards groups exist because lack of device interoperability has contributed to serious industrial accidents over the past century. In many cases, all it takes to prevent equipment malfunction is maximum adaptability between devices – exactly what networked industrial software and analysis tools were designed for.
Eliminating Load Measurement Guesswork With Tractel
Our experienced load measuring engineers developed our proprietary Dynafor® analysis and monitoring softwarearound the most stringent technical standards, and with the widest range of uses and regulatory requirements in mind. Built for maximum adaptability with our innovative Dynafor® dynamometer devices, the two working together function at the bleeding edge of industrial load measuring.
Advanced load measurement software from the same manufacturer that built your dynamometer is the single most reliable way of achieving maximum load measurement accuracy. It also enhances usability, which can be more convenient or even outright necessary for load handling operations reaching the limits of regulatory and technical standards.
As an industry leader in both load testing services and on-site measurement solutions, Tractel has revolutionized the industry yet again with our advanced digital monitoring and analysis software. To learn more about how our load measurement solutions can support your load handling requirements, contact us now!