CHECKWEIGHERS, PRIOR TO ALPHA
1987
ALL COMPANIES HAVE A GREAT SUCCESS STORY; ALLOW US TO PROUDLY SHARE OURS. ALL-FILL INC. IS A FAMILY OWNED AND OPERATED THAT HAS THRIVED OVER THE COURSE OF THREE GENERATIONS OF EDGINTON’S.
Since the very beginning of 1969 some employees have come and gone, others are still employed to this day. The industry has changed and All-Fill was eager to adapt along the way. There were tough times, there were always great times. No matter the business, the key to success is hard work and determination. Never was this truer than in the very beginning, the early years in which the first employees laid the structural foundation and required a work ethic for long-term success and growth. At All-Fill, we have a great story to tell, enjoy following the history of our company throughout this blog series and we will get back to work so that we can continue writing future chapters.
AS A CONTINUATION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CEREBUS II CONTROL BOARD, ALL-FILL BEGAN TAKING ON MORE FILL BY WEIGHT APPLICATIONS.
The checkweighers were starting to become an industry standard and All-Fill was interested in getting into the market because the fit of a checkweighers directly after a filler was seamless. During the first half of 1987, All-Fill began to private label checkweighers that were manufactured in the UK, it was called HiTech. HiTech would manufacture the checkweighers per the filling application and ship it to All-Fill to have it integrated with the filler and other auxiliary equipment on the packaging line. The checkweighers from HiTech came along with the names of Champion, Hawk and Tribune.
PRIVATE LABELING IS A GREAT IDEA ASSUMING THAT THE APPLICATION IS STRAIGHTFORWARD AND SIMPLE, OFTENTIMES IN PACKAGING THIS IS NOT THE CASE AND ALL-FILL FOUND THAT PRIVATE LABELING THE HITECH CHECKWEIGHERS WAS DIFFICULT.
Customers would frequently be asking All-Fill to make modifications to the HiTech checkweighers which was difficult and time consuming to do because the technical information was proprietary to HiTech. All-Fill was losing its customer base and integrity by waiting for a response from England. Now that All-Fill was confident with over two full years of fill by weight success stories, it was time to turn our attention towards the design and development of checkweighers that we had complete and total control over as well.
ALL-FILL DEVELOPED IT’S FIRST CHECKWEIGHERS CALLED GUARDIAN IN 1989, IT FEATURED THE CEREBUS II CONTROL.
The Guardian could be modified here at All-Fill, and we controlled the service aspect of the Guardian aftermarket. As a result, the Guardian began selling to many different applications. Checkweighers allowed All-Fill’s product line to reach existing customers as well as brand new customers as checkweighers can, but do not have to stand alone. Many times, checkweighers are integrated with filler but sometimes not. At this stage, All-Fill had completely phased out early controls such as the DC Panel and the timer that was often used in fillers. All-Fill was selectively using the Cerebus II control board on higher end machine models, but always using it on checkweighers.
Initially, All-Fill did not brand the checkweighers series as Alpha Checkweighers, this did not occur until the 1990's. The original offering called Guardian was soon replaced by advanced models such as the Checkster and the first CW-10 (a model still offered today). All-Fill would continue to develop checkweighers throughout the 1990’s and continuously improve the design and functionality. The versatility of the machinery and development of strict checks and balances systems for end users in the packaging industry have led to a surplus of checkweighers in the market. All-Fill benefits from the filler and checkweighers offering because the customers like to deal with one supplier. Line integration and packaging systems became much easier with the development of Alpha Checkweighers and ultimately Avatar VFFS.
