Mass Management Accreditation encourages heavy vehicle operators to take greater responsibility for responsibility for loading their trucks correctly ensuring that trucks are compliant. This will assist you to manage your business more efficiently. Initially, by having clear procedures in place to ensure that your trucks are compliant and achieving the legal masses and also reducing the risk of mass breaches. Improved Mass management procedures will also lead to improved road safety.
The benefits to operators may include:
• productivity and efficiency improvements
• complying with the requirements of concessional mass and higher mass limits
• complying to Level 2 GML mass limits and network access
• increased customer confidence with better loading of vehicles
• better driver morale
• reduced impact of enforcement
• better relationships with enforcement agencies
Benefits to the community include better and more consistent compliance with road safety standards.
As an accredited operator under Mass Management, you are required to know what your trucks weigh when they are loaded to ensure that they do not exceed the relevant mass limits. Accurate records of your mass procedures are required to be created and maintained as evidence that correct weight loading of your vehicles is taking place. How you create and monitor these records as evidence are at your own discretion.
For example, you could use a weighbridge, use on-board scales, estimate the weight from the volume of the load, or a combination of methods. It is necessary to document your system you intend to follow and explain how it works. This will be your Mass Management System
You are required to have documents of vehicle weights that prove your procedures and methods work and your vehicles are not overloaded to maintain accreditation. Essentially, this means that your vehicle weight records are current and retained and you must support this by demonstrating that you have followed your written procedures.
Your Mass Management System must comply with the performance standards outlined in the Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme: Business Rules and Standards. As an accredited operator, enrolled in Mass Management, you will be audited periodically by an independent auditor to ensure that you are continuing to meet the standards of the scheme. If your audit is successful, your accreditation will be renewed. Alternatively, you may be asked to improve your system before renewal of your accreditation.
You may be audited at any time with your vehicles subject to on-road checks to ensure conformance to the performance standards. Mass Management Accreditation will ensure you receive preferential treatment from enforcement agencies as you will be subject to fewer on-road checks. In the instance of undergoing a random check, your vehicle will be dealt with as quickly as possible. The Maintenance Mass Accreditation stickers on your vehicle will identify this to inspectors.
Click here to see how easy it is to enrol in NHVAS Mass Management accreditation.