It seems quite obvious that it is necessary to accurately measure all of the ingredients that must be mixed together to manufacture any formulation. What is not as obvious is the level of accuracy that must be attained. This, of course, is highly dependent on the material being formulated. Some types of mixtures are, by their nature, not very accurate and standard. This may be the case with agricultural products and animal feed mixtures. Others may need higher accuracy, but these levels may be easily achieved by a regular digital scale. Standard industrial scales can provide accuracy as good as 1/10 of 1%. Many chemicals, cleaning solutions, foods, and other mixtures easily fall within this range. This allows the typical bench scales to be used [+]

The postal system handles millions of pieces of mail each day. Many of these items are single pieces of correspondence, such as bills, checks, photos and personal letters. But a very significant number are associated with promoting or advertising products or events or organizations. Most often, the exact same promotional material is sent to hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of recipients. The US post office offers special postal rates for these mailings. Generally, the sending organization is responsible for sorting the mail in a manner that minimizes the efforts required by the postal system. It must also be labeled, and often coded in pre-determined ways. A primary requirement is that the number of pieces be very accurately known since the post office charges for each piece sent. The weight of an individual item must be determined, the total weight [+]