Future Vision of Waste Operations

New Model Emerging in the Waste Subcontractor Space

 We see a new model emerging in the waste subcontracting space that will drive the future of the industry and operations. The model starts with the waste operators’ internal operations as the hub for external interactions between the customers and subcontractors. Using this model, all three parties work together in an automated, seamless way. In this model, data flows freely from customer to operations to subcontractor and back.

The three innovation drivers (Agility Imperative, Data-Driven Decisions, Cloud Enablement) are key to bringing about a future that is increasingly automated in subcontracting for operators.

If you can integrate how you work with both your subcontractors and your customers, subcontractors really become an extension of your team rather than purely external entities. And by streamlining the process, you are creating value in mutual benefit, where all three stakeholders’ benefit from efficient, optimal processes and operations. The customer gets better service and both you and the subcontractor get better processes and can reduce costs.

Common Operational Challenges in Subcontracting

• How to find the right subcontractor
• How to send out jobs
• How to receive confirmations
• How to receive invoices

These challenges can also be reversed for subcontractors: how receive jobs, send confirmations, etc. Both operators and subcontractors struggle on either side of the challenge. Operators and subcontractors also struggle with broader business questions such as how to grow and scale the business without growing administrative costs, how to make customers happier, how to create competitive advantage, etc.

Today, many operators use paper, email, Excel, phone calls PDFs, etc. to manage and document the daily operations of their businesses. The future vision answers all these challenges with the use of automation.

Stages of Subcontractor Automation Evolution

Full automation won’t happen all at once. We see automation most often happening in stages, as an operator and subcontractors move into a new level of automation, they work to become aligned and efficient in that stage, before moving into the next.

As you get into the further stages of automation, greater investment in tools, infrastructure, and management become necessary and are therefore more difficult to get to quickly. Rather, by taking steps toward full automation into shared decision-making, operators and subcontractors are most likely to succeed in their overall operational efficiency and business goals.

1.      Manual: jobs sent by email/Excel, exceptions by phone

2.      Information Exchange: customer and supplier share supporting information with each other.

3.      Transaction Automation: RFQs, orders, jobs, confirmations, and invoices all sent electronically

4.      Real-Time Information: Real-time supporting information shared, such as inventory, route capacity, and route delays

5.      Shared Decisions: partners can push actions into each other’s systems to make shared, data-driven decisions

Managing the Subcontractor Life Cycle with Automation Solutions

Automation solutions can certainly get operators and subcontractors to the stage three transaction automation stage, with near-future capabilities in real-time information sharing. The right platform will help operators build a Connected Subcontracting program, which manages the relationship with subcontractors as a standard life cycle. The life cycle includes three stage: sourcing, managing, and invoicing.

1.      Sourcing: The sourcing stage of the life cycle includes on boarding, profile and pricing, and auctions (if necessary). This includes compliance and certifications, as well as the ability to proactively find subcontractors and/or allow subcontractors to sign themselves up.

In profiling, subcontractors include information regarding their pricing, regions of operations, licenses and certifications, etc. The sourcing area also allows subcontractors to go out and find business themselves.

2.      Managing: Once a subcontractor has been on boarded, sending jobs and receiving confirmations is another highly manual job in waste operations today.

Automation makes it a much easier, more streamlined process. It also allows subcontractors to provide job confirmations in real-time, including when the job is completed, or if there were issues with the job that need to be addressed.

3.      Invoicing: Processing invoices manually for subcontractor work is a massive challenge for operators. In most organizations, it is a highly time-consuming task that is fraught with discrepancies and errors. The challenge is to take the invoice that is sent from the subcontractor and match it to the jobs they were assigned and the confirmations that the jobs were completed. So, it’s a three-way match that can get very complicated.

But with you have an automated system for transactions, the invoices can match to the rest of the life cycle of the subcontractor, matching the subcontractor with the jobs they were assigned and the confirmations that have been received.

Learn more about the future of waste management operations, and practical applications of AMCS automation solutions.

Unlock Value Using Subcontractor Automation

The pace of change in technology today is driving the waste industry to move to more agile, automated operations. In part, customers are driving this change. As the general population becomes more accustomed to being able to access information quickly and in real-time in all areas of their lives, they are increasingly expecting this level of service from waste providers as well.

Further, business operators are accustomed to accessing performance data in other areas of the business. The more waste operators can bring field-operations activity into data-centric platforms, the better they will be able to optimize the business, make data-driven decisions, and improve profitability.

Innovation Drivers

We see three innovation drivers as being the catalysts for change in the waste subcontracting space. These three drivers are really what are bringing about a future that is increasingly automated in subcontracting for operators.

1.      Agility Imperative: Commercial models are evolving constantly. Not so long ago, it was enough to just be using the most up-to-date technology. But today, the ability for the technology itself to change is a factor in its use. If a customer wants to be able to do something differently, you must be able to respond quickly without needing to make software changes in the background.

In subcontracting, the big driver here is for customers to see real-time data across a national account. They get information like this in other parts of their business, and they’re starting to ask for it from their waste providers as well.

2.      Data-Driven Decisions: When you’re using manual or paper-based processes, it’s very difficult to learn from your actions. It’s difficult to understand what you’re doing well and what’s not going as well so you can make changes to improve.

If you want to be able to refine and optimize your subcontracting program, you need access to high-quality information. This means you must be able to capture data. Transactions must be made and recorded electronically whenever possible. In doing so, your subcontractors’ performance becomes something that you can search, analyze, and explore so you can make more informed, data-driven decisions.

3.      Cloud Enablement: The cloud is a massive driver of change across all industries, and waste is no exception. It allows you organization to share data across the organization in real-time. In terms of subcontracting, it becomes essential if you want to automate and optimize operations.

Cloud enablement helps future-proof your business by aligning your business’ information systems. Further, you should give preference to subcontractors who are also operating in the cloud to align with your business and provide automated, real-time data.

Improve Profit with Operational Efficiency Automate and Streamline Processes

Smaller haulers enjoy greater profitability by reducing costs with better operational efficiency. In the waste hauling industry, margins are notoriously tight, particularly for smaller, privately owned businesses. But with great challenges also comes great opportunities. Intelligently investing in digitizing almost any facet of your operations results in improved profits. Here are five ways you can improve profits with operational efficiency:

1.      Inventory & Resource Tracking: Improve the efficiency of your inventory tracking by adding serial numbers or RFID tags.

2.      Minimize Missed & Skipped Services: Implement service guarantees to help minimize missed or skipped services and pickups, allowing you to stay on top of operational delays before the customer calls.

3.      Get Ahead of Customer Complaints: Get ahead of customer complaints and missed or skipped services by proactively tracking all services and work orders that are not completed within 24 hours of scheduling.

4.      Automate Route Selection & Delegate Effectively: Automate routing by region, line of business, material category, and service area.

5.      Reduce Time Spent on Transport Planning & Execution: Implement a route optimization system to increase productivity and profitability of all routes that run across your organization. This ensures that your drivers are working their routes in the most efficient way possible.

If this seems a bit overwhelming, don’t worry! Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your efficiency optimization plans be. Try picking just one of the items from the list and focus on getting that one right before you move on to the next one. Set short and long-term goals that will put your business on the right track to greater profitability.

Smart waste planning drives value

The world’s cities produce around 2.01 billion tons of solid waste each year, says the World Bank, with that number expected to reach 3.40 billion tons by 2050. This is a Value-creation opportunity in a circular economy that requires, Routing and business optimization and Municipal Waste Collection Industrial & Commercial Waste collection (Roll-on off Skips containers)

What do municipalities need to do?

Already, from New York to Oslo, first leaders and movers among municipalities are undertaking inspiring projects to facilitate their own circular economies, based on three principles as outlined by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation in their report Intelligent Assets: Unlocking the Circular Economy Potential:

ü Design out waste and pollution (products are designed to be recycled)

ü Keep products and materials in use

ü Regenerate natural systems

With business models focusing on renewal, these municipalities are addressing the challenges by harnessing the power of digital solutions. For those looking for strategies to develop a circular economy – or even to improve on their existing strategies – these digital solutions should absolutely include route optimization for waste and recycling management.

Value-creation opportunity

Route optimization is a value-creation opportunity, according to the report by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, which also cites the need to maximize fleet efficiency.

Doing so not only provides cost savings for municipalities and waste management companies, but also reduces CO2 emissions while prolonging the life of the vehicle itself and its parts – goals which firmly align not only with the circular economy’s agenda, but also with that of any Chief Financial Officer.

The new challenges for waste management companies

The shift from landfill to recycling over the years has presented new challenges to waste management companies. The demands are soaring for sorting, tracking and quality assurance from all aspects of waste management. To stay competitive, agility is critical. Companies must have the ability to collect information in real time and re-plan accordingly for new orders, changes in orders, vehicle equipment monitoring and more. This is fleet efficiency – a value-creation opportunity.

The role of route optimization

Waste bins and containers are scattered throughout cities and towns. Intelligent route optimization makes collection strategy smart and more efficient. By optimizing routes in real time, municipalities and companies can reduce the number of miles they drive.

Route Optimization can handle extreme data volumes for high density planning. Users of this digital technology have experienced reductions of up to 25%, not only in miles, but also in CO2 emissions and driving time.

Route Optimization has also been found to reduce the number of trucks needed altogether, a bonus for cash-strapped municipals looking to create a circular economy. The World Bank has long quoted the cost of handling solid waste management as 20%-50% of a municipal’s budget, while other research indicates the figure is likely to be between 3% and 10%. Whatever the breakdown, the cost savings that Route Optimization can give municipals – and waste management companies – can prove significant.

Replacing paper with digital solutions

Municipalities and waste management companies can gain even more efficiencies and make inroads into a circular economy with real-time insight into operations. This involves going paperless with the added benefit of increasing margins.

With on-vehicle technology, the back office can get a clear window into waste collection services and make real-time adjustments to scheduling. Drivers are issued with tablets, from which they can get digital schedule updates, intelligent turn-by-turn navigation – there’s more of course. Or should be more. The ideal on-vehicle technology will make significant reductions in wasted journeys, miles travelled, fuel usage and CO2 emissions.

Mobile Workforce, for instance, has given user's a return on investment within three to six months – that’s how valuable it’s proven in terms of costs and efficiencies while lessening users’ carbon footprints.

Digital solutions such as Route Optimization and Mobile Workforce future proof waste management companies, enabling them to meet challenges head on and even embrace the circular economy if that’s their strategy.

Towards a more efficient fleet

Route planning should always be part of the story. The Ellen Macarthur Foundation found that route planning increased utilization of assets and resources by reducing driving time and improving utilization rate, meaning drivers are more productive. But the right fleet-planning solution does more. It should also give planners complete transparency into their sites to make decisions based on accurate information.

Fleet planning allows companies to optimize their daily collections and distribution/pickups. It takes care of customer booking, ad hoc planning and real-time execution. More than one planner can work simultaneously on the same data. Fleet planning gives waste operators the ability to be agile and efficient.

Fleet planning users have experienced up to a 15% reduction in the number of vehicles or drivers’ shifts needed and up to a 25% reduction in miles, driving time and CO2 emissions. The largest saving has been seen in transport planning, execution and follow up, with up to 50% less time spent on these activities.

Waste Planning

New and more complex challenges when planning waste collection for municipalities, waste management companies and waste transporters

The increase in recycling of waste also means higher demands for sorting, tracking and quality assurance of the different waste fractions.

For municipalities it means more collections from households with varying frequencies to accommodate waste fractions. It increases the demand for municipalities to optimize and plan their collection routes.

The development also means that recycling stations and companies need more bins and waste containers than ever before, which again in turn requires an agile and dynamic approach when planning and executing collections.

Intelligent Route Optimization solution has proven to help municipalities, waste management companies and waste transporters by reducing the time spent on transport planning, executing and follow-up with 20-50%. Among other things, the system can handle:

? Automatic planning and optimization of complex master routes with many stops and various waste fractions

? Predict when it is the most optimal time to collect Roll-On Roll-Off bin “RoRo” and underground containers

? Optimization in real-time and maintain a close connection between the back-office and the driver

? Automatic surveillance and follow-up on irregularities in service

Typical benefits our customers experience include:

? 5-25% reduction of driving time, CO2 emissions and driven kilometers

? 5-15% reduction in the number of vehicles and / or driver shifts

? 20-50% reduction in time spent on planning, execution and follow-up

? Higher level of customer service

Vehicle Technology - Vehicle Technology Weighing, grading and material trading Technology

The biggest challenges facing the waste management industry are ineffective collections, irregular waste pickups and the efficient sorting of waste, according to a recent analysis by Frost & Sullivan.

“Companies should leverage IoT and big data to optimize and increase the efficiency of their waste management processes and strengthen client relationships,” said the consultancy’s Akshaya Gomatam Ramachandran, Energy & Environment Research Analyst. The report revealed that the waste and recycling industry are investing less than 1% of their revenue in ICT, with most companies spending on procuring more trucks, containers or installations.

More of the same, in other words. These investments won’t address challenges such as ineffective collections in any game-changing way.

Rethinking your strategy

Companies who haven’t yet embraced vehicle technology need to rethink their strategy going forward if they’re to make significant improvements in efficiency, and thus, revenues.

According to Contractor magazine, vehicle telematics “can deliver at least 500% return on investment (ROI) when used to the fullest.” The magazine sites efficiency, fuel savings and decreased labor costs as the reason businesses see 100% ROI within just a few months. “Vehicle telematics helps businesses save money in a myriad of ways that it shouldn’t be considered an expense, but rather as a tool to reduce costs, reduce risk, and increase revenue.”

If telematics – technology that monitors vehicles – can do that, what can go one step further with vehicle technology accomplish?

What is vehicle technology?

Vehicle technology controls costs by making on-board weighing, bin identification and waste collection easier and more efficient.

Vehicle technology, if done right, gives you a deeper view into your operations so that you can see what’s working and what’s not. It allows you to put a stop to revenue leakage and control costs. In effect, it’s future proofing your business. Examples of vehicle technology include:

? Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

If you carry a contactless card, you already have personal experience of using RFID. RFID uses radio waves to read, capture, and interact with information stored on a tag, which in the case of waste management, is attached to bins.

? On-board weighing

Know the exact weight of your bins, implement pay-by-waste collection services, offer varied pricing plans – this technology gives you lots of possibilities for increasing your profitability.

? On-board computer and in-cab tablet solution

The ability to coordinate, arrange and rearrange schedules. Allows you to use your drivers more efficiently based on real-time information, while drivers can feedback information to you in real time.

What do these technologies do?

Let’s look at a best-in-class vehicle technology, which gives you a fully calibrated and robust bin management system. It’s really very simple. When integrated these technologies give you real-time visibility into your vehicles, routes and collection progress so that you can get a deeper view of your operations and see what’s working and what’s not.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID)

RFID identifies and tracks your waste containers. More than that, it validates, monitors and optimizes waste collections. It’s been proven to increase fleet efficiency by up to 25%. It gives you proof of service and tracks your exact number of lifts.

When used with GPS option, you can also improve route planning and real-time efficiency monitoring by tracking vehicles. Smarter routes are how you reduce mileage and fuel, of course.

On-board weighing

On-board weighing solutions give you real-time data for each container. You can optimize load efficiency across your fleet so that each truck is operating to full capacity. You can identify profitable – and unprofitable customers.

With a Weighbridge, for example, you can collect and manage weight information quickly. It allows you to track all incoming and outgoing material at the weighbridge. If you have a steady flow of vehicles constantly entering and leaving your site and weighing needs to be done quickly, then a dynamic weighbridge makes perfect sense. You can also document compliance with overload regulations, making the whole process so much easier than before.

Mobile Workforce

This is on-board computer and in-cab tablet solution and enables you to give customers a higher level of service while streamlining your operations. Drivers are issued with tablets, on which they can have constant contact with planners, receiving information such as schedule changes in real time. The results are reduction in wasted journeys, fleet mileage, fuel and emissions. It can also increase the capacity of your skip fleet and automate your billing system.

In the end, it’s about productivity

Vehicle technology can add a real boost to productivity in so many ways. From eliminating the need to manually key in data to coordinating with drivers in real time, every aspect of vehicle technology is designed to make you more productive and reduce your operational costs.

Turning Resources into Revenue with Scale House Optimization

Scale house operators deal with a lot of complexity on a day-to-day basis in their business. Those that are still working with legacy systems experience a lack of visibility into scale house activity—what materials are coming in, their origin, and what is going out. There is no integration between the weigh system and the back office, making invoicing and collections costly and time-consuming. And they struggle to keep things moving on the ground, getting trucks in and out as quickly and efficiently as possible to keep queues to a minimum.

The right software allows scale houses to easily track materials by origin, destination, weight, volume, and/or number of units to reduce revenue leakage. The platform provides integration with complete visibility between the back office and scale house operations, significantly speeding up invoice delivery and collection times.

Scale house operators also enjoy the benefits of much faster truck throughput, reducing scale queues to get trucks back on the road faster and improve customer satisfaction. Also enables them to save on paper and postage with the ability to easily email weight slips, invoices, and statements to clients.

Set user roles and security levels

Scale house management can easily set user defined security roles and levels. This ensure that your system is secured, and the right people have the level of access they need to do their jobs, without enabling widespread changes. This keeps your data hygienic and your critical system settings, such as pricing tiers, etc., secure. Also provides multi-location organizations to setup and customize settings and security by site location.

Automatically collect tare weights on outbound loads

Using scale house operators can set and store tare weights of frequent trucks, eliminating the need to weigh out every time they come through. This significantly reduces the amount of time spent on location, getting trucks back out on the road faster and reducing queues and traffic at the site.

System administrators have a significant level of flexibility to set seasonal tares and to set alerts and expirations. For example, the system can be set to flag a truck’s 20th visit and will send the scale house operator an alert that tells them that it’s time to weigh the truck out again.

Create scale tickets with speed and simplicity

For some scale houses, ticketing can become a real headache. Beginning with the need to purchase and load paper and ink, stopping to replace it when it runs out, to drivers and clients constantly losing tickets.

When you digitize your ticketing system, you can simply send tickets via email and save ticketing information in case your clients need the information again in the future. The platform also allows you to print and reprint tickets as-needed. Further, the platform lets system administrators to set ticket defaults, reducing or even eliminating altogether the need to fill out the same truck information repeatedly.

Flexible Pricing Options

Pricing settings are completely flexible and highly customizable. System administrators can set up the ability to discount, set up multipliers, pricing tiers, and more. Pricing can also be set up by weight, size, volume and number of units—basically, you can set up as many different pricing structures as you need!

Users also have the capability to proactively set pricing expiration and adjustments, as well as retroactive price changes. Your scale house operation is unlimited in its ability to set pricing that works best for you.

Assign a system power user at your company

When implementing new software, or just trying to improve the use of a current one, it is best to have a dedicated system power user. This is the internal, go-to person for all things related to the software. They are trained on all aspects of the system and are the main point of contact between your company and your software provider.

Below are 7 benefits of having a system power user.

1.      Speeds up implementation time of the software

2.      Streamlines communication, resulting in faster problem resolution

3.      Trains existing and new employees on the software

4.      Solves internal questions without “clogging” the software support queue

5.      Eliminates redundant issues being logged

6.      Reduces the need to go to support for minor questions

7.      Allows for better customer management with single point of contact

It is important for your power user to stay on top of their own training to maintain their advanced skills, knowledge, experience and capabilities. It is recommended at minimum to have them attend training annually, but since software systems are frequently updated with new features and workflows, they may require a higher frequency of self-education. Making sure the software power user is educated on the software ensures you are getting the most out of your software as these important improvements are implemented and emphasizes the support/power user relationship.