Waste not, want not

With ever-increasing amounts of waste and decreasing resources, escalating environmental concerns and rising input costs, the waste management industry is expected to face some tough challenges in 2017.

As such, key industry players increasingly question whether or not they are operating as economically and efficiently as possible, knowing that an integrated approach to waste management could be the key to unlocking a myriad of benefits and achieving more sustainable success over the long-term.

With a growing number of stakeholders involved in the process of waste management – each looking to manage their resources as efficiently as possible – integration and knowledge sharing are thus becoming more important than ever before, says Bill Ambrose, Regional General Manager for WA and SA at AccuWeigh, Australia’s biggest supplier of weighbridges, weighing equipment and product inspection equipment.

“Business-to-business communication can lead to better economies of scale, more streamlined reporting and savings in terms of both money and time,” says Ambrose.

“What’s important to note here is that collaboration among partner companies doesn’t mean giving away trade secrets or opening up vulnerabilities for others to exploit. It’s merely a tool to facilitate lean systems and lasting success.”

According to Ambrose, advanced software and technological developments enable operations to do business in a dramatically different way nowadays.

“Digital communication makes it possible for data to be captured and shared wirelessly and remotely – for example from an unmanned weighbridge to a central processing system or between truck drivers in the eld and their home base – and waste companies should be actively pursuing ways of exploiting technology for both financial and operational gains.”

He adds that weighbridge integration is a case in point: “An integrated weighbridge software solution makes
it possible to centrally manage all your weighing operations, whether you operate a single weighbridge or have installations at several different sites,” he explains. “It can also be used as a comprehensive vehicle management system, a traffic management system capable of reducing bottlenecks and streamlining the flow of vehicles and an on-site security system capable of controlling security cameras, entry and exit barriers and checking number plates automatically.

“Systems can be fully configurable for each application, producing digital records of each and every vehicle entering and leaving the sites and providing operators with comprehensive data that can be used for a range of functions.”

Weighing systems expert Ambrose says integration takes much of the paperwork – and, consequently, the likelihood of human error – out of the equation and can provide operators with a wealth of information that can be used to optimise the business. From data on the number of vehicles entering the site each day, volumes (on an hourly, daily or weekly basis), vehicle turnaround time and revenues (by customer and sector) to profitability and resourcing, there are many areas where businesses can turn knowledge into operational and resourcing – and possibly revenue – improvements, he says.

“The waste industry has historically been characterised by multiple operators along the supply chain, but a worldwide trend is for larger operations to achieve economies of scale through mergers or by acquiring smaller players. The response has to be a renewed focus on integration and collaboration.

“Advancements in weighbridge integration enable much more productive outcomes among the partners in the waste process – even among competitors – and allow larger, merged operations to marry the systems of their multiple divisions together to achieve substantial savings in time and costs.”

This article has been produced in collaboration with AccuWeigh. With a portfolio of over 1,000 weighbridge installations throughout Australia and New Zealand, AccuWeigh has the experience to identify individual weighbridge needs and provide businesses with the best integrated weighbridge solution.

More information head to AccuWeigh.

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