Roger Edberg had an important

Transcription

1 Changes Coming in Onboard Scales and Collection Software Performance, longevity, accuracy, and the ability to collect, handle and analyze the staggering amount of data are key issues for commercial haulers. BY DAN RAFTER Mettler Toledo Roger Edberg had an important mission in He d just taken over as senior superintendent of the ground services department at University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), and one of his goals was to divert as much campus waste as possible from landfills. Like many college campuses and municipalities UCSC is working to boost its recycling and composting efforts and reduce the amount of waste it sends each day to area landfills. To help the university meets its new and loftier diversion goals, Edberg needed more information about the waste that the university s collection vehicles were collecting and hauling. He needed data to tell him exactly how much waste the university s collection vehicles were already trucking to landfills. That s where onboard collection software in this case, the LoadMan LM400 load management software from LoadMan, a division of Creative Microsystems came in. The university has been piloting this collection software since The Load- Man software gives drivers the ability to track load weights, load locations, the type of products that they are hauling, and the most efficient routes to complete their pickups and dropoffs. But what Edberg truly appreciates is that the onboard software allows drivers to instantly calculate the weight of a particular load. This is important: In the past, drivers for the university were only tracking their collections by volume. This means that the university would often undercharge customers when they were picking up particularly heavy loads. And that resulted in lost revenue for the university during a time when every dollar is of critical importance. As Edberg puts it: We d charge the same amount of money for a dumpster filled with balloons as we would for one filled with bricks. Today? Drivers at the university are able to track whether a pick-up is heavier than usual. The university can then charge accordingly, helping to keep its bottom line a healthy one. By charging by weight instead of by volume, we more accurately take into account [ ] MSW MANAGEMENT 67

2 our costs, says Edberg. We can then charge our customers correctly for the amount of work we are doing. That has been such an important change. Not a Rarity Edberg is not the only solid waste professional realizing the benefits of onboard scale and collection software. These twin technologies can help solid waste drivers immediately determine when their trucks are reaching their maximum-allowable weights. They can help them chart how much a particular load weighs, so that they won t accidentally damage their trucks by lifting a dumpster that is too heavy. With onboard scales and collection software, municipalities can make sure that they are not undercharging or overcharging the customers along their routes. And, perhaps most importantly, this technology helps drivers chart the most efficient routes to and from collection points, transfer stations, and landfills. This information can reduce the expenses of municipal solid waste districts. Link suspensions are engineered with an unwavering focus on the customer. Our pledge is to improve performance. Whether that s through collaborative OE engineering, reduced fleet downtime, or enhanced driver well-being, we pride ourselves on going the extra mile to exceed customers expectations. YOUR TRUST...OUR PASSION! everything you demand from a heavy-duty suspension CABMATE TANDEM DRIVE SUSPENSIONS LIFT AXLES Phone Trucks that don t travel too far, and don t haul loads that are too heavy, will require less maintenance and fewer repairs. They ll consume less fuel. And that all adds up to a more financially stable solid waste district. These economic benefits are the reason why so many municipalities are turning to onboard collection software and scales today, say the professionals working in this industry. Tricia Baker, marketing manager with Eugene, OR-based Air-Weigh, says that her company has long been passionate about on-board scales. But what s good today is that Baker and her peers at Air-Weigh are far from alone: She says that a growing number of municipal solid waste (MSW) officials are now focused on providing their drivers with the technology they need to calculate the weights of their loads and run more efficient routes based on the amount of waste their vehicles are already carrying. This is a trend that Baker says is good for the industry, one that illustrates how the MSW industry is becoming a more mature one. The professionals overseeing waste collection are more comfortable with technology, and understand the cost savings that scales and collection software can provide. A lot of companies have been using onboard scales for a long time. But we are seeing a big change with solid waste officials and managers talking about weight in general, says Baker. Before, they turned to onboard scales after something went wrong. They wanted to use the scales to make sure it wouldn t happen again. Now they are more proactive than they have been in the past. They are now using onboard scales to be more efficient. Air-Weigh offers two types of onboard scales that municipalities can use to run their fleets more efficiently. The BinMaxx onboard scale tells truck operators how much a particular garbage bin weighs. This product, designed mostly for front loaders, gives operators the information they need to avoid picking up a bin so heavy that it will damage their front-loaders. They can also use the information provided by BinMaxx to make sure that they don t over- or undercharge their customers. A bin that is full of engine blocks every week should come with a higher charge than one that is filled with cardboard, says Baker. Air-Weigh also offers LoadMaxx, which 68 MSW MANAGEMENT [ SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015 ]

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4 provides an overall weight of a truck at any given time. Baker says that customers install this product for safety reasons. If a waste vehicle is overweight, it can t stop as quickly as it needs to. If it gets into a wreck and can t stop, that is bad press if an overweight vehicle is the cause, she says. Companies and municipalities don t want that kind of press. By operating a truck at the proper weight, they can avoid this potential problem. LoadMaxx can help reduce the maintenance costs on a waste truck, too, Baker says. When operators drive their vehicles when they weigh too much, it can cause unnecessary wear and tear on them. If drivers are alerted by an on-board scale that they are driving a truck that is carrying too much waste, they can head back to a landfill or transfer station to empty their load. The reduced wear-and-tear pays off over the long run in the form of lower maintenance costs and fewer big repair bills, Baker says. Onboard scales can even provide good public relations for municipalities, whether they use an outside contractor to pick up their waste or whether they run their own fleet of vehicles. Overweight waste vehicles can severely damage streets, dotting them with potholes and cracks, something that won t make municipal officials or residents who have to drive these streets happy. But when operators drive trucks that meet a municipality s suggested weight limits? They are doing their part to protect that municipality s roads. Companies are proud to use these scales, she says. If you are not running overweight trucks around your neighborhoods, you are being a good citizen of the cities that you are serving. You are protecting their roads and infrastructure. Diversion in Santa Cruz For a good example of how onboard scales and collection software can benefit users, look toward California. At the UCSC grounds, service officials study the data that their trucks onboard software provides to determine if they need to change drivers routes and if they are doing enough to divert waste from landfills. They also study the data to make sure that they are charging the proper fees for every customer, upping their fees appropriately for those clients with consistently heavier pick-ups. We now have a real-time knowledge of what is going on, says Edberg. We can now understand the flow of material and how we are managing it. It is great for our budgeting. The data stream from the onboard collection software is playing a big role in the university s efforts to boost the amount of waste it recycles, Edberg says. That s because grounds services officials can now break down the weight of the waste materials that their drivers are trucking to landfills from different sectors of the campus. Edberg might discover that one part of campus is responsible for the most waste month after month. Armed with this information, the grounds services department can take actions to help the buildings and clients at this part of campus reduce the amount of waste they generate. It helps us track down which sectors are diverting well, and which need help, says Edberg. Edberg says that he would recommend onboard collection software for any large-scale solid-waste operator. He says that the university is now saving significant money by charging their customers according to weight instead of volume. IS ONLY AS GOOD AS ACCURATE AND RELIABLE WEIGHT DATA STARTS WITH AN ACCURATE AND RELIABLE SCALE SYSTEM. THAT IS WHY WE FOCUS ON DESIGNING AND MANUFACTURING THE MOST ROBUST SCALES AVAILABLE. STOP BY BOOTH 1623 AT WASTECON 2015 TO LEARN MORE VULC N V ON-BOARD SCALES PH: MSW MANAGEMENT [ SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015 ]

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6 And that s something that never would have happened without the benefit of collection software. We had always been estimating volumes when it came to collecting waste, says Edberg. I thought that there had to be something better out there. It seemed crazy that we couldn t bill by weight instead of volume. It didn t seem realistic. Our software does everything we want it to do. It does automated weighing, and it gives us a centralized collection of data through the cloud. Alan Housley, vice president of marketing and product management with Renton, WA-based Creative Microsystems, provider of LoadMan onboard collection software, says that waste and recycling professionals are evolving. Municipalities are demanding that waste collection supervisors use technology to analyze their routes. The goal is to reduce the costs of collecting waste. At the same time, municipalities are increasingly setting new recycling goals. They want their waste collection trucks traveling more often to recycling centers than to landfills. This, too, is increasing the demand for onboard scales and software, Housley says. But the biggest change hitting the industry today? Housley says that it s coming from the customers of waste haulers. These customers, including municipalities that outsource their garbage collection services, are demanding that haulers provide them with data showing how much waste they ve sent to landfills, and how much they ve diverted to recycling centers. There is a sea change going on in this industry right now, says Housley. And onboard scales and collection software are at the forefront of this change, he says, providing the numbers that so many customers WEIGH EACH LIFT Are you over or undercharging your customers? Know the weight of each bin right away! (888) are now demanding from their haulers. The MSW market is one of the leaders of this trend, Housley states. And that s because municipalities are placing a bigger emphasis on sustainability efforts. There was a time when city councils would request a sustainability report from municipal departments once a year. It would sit there and gather dust, says Housley. That has changed. Now they are living, breathing documents that drive what municipalities are doing to protect the environment. Municipalities that contract with outside haulers are increasingly demanding that the companies they hire to collect their solid waste provide detailed data on how much of this waste they divert from landfills. The goals of many of these communities is to significantly lower the amount of waste that they send to landfills and increase the amount they send to recycling stations and compost centers. Without onboard software that charts how much waste trucks collect and where they bring it, it s difficult to determine whether haulers are meeting the diversion goals set by the municipalities that hire them. The problem has always been that there are too many people in the process, says Housley. You have a trucker with route sheets who has to write down weights. That trucker turns the route sheets into administrators who may or may not be there. Where did the paper end up? The information on it has to be loaded into the computer by someone else. The hauler also has to get the landfill tickets. They might get lost along the way. There is where you run into an integrity issue. You may have accurate data on weight, but when you get to the total weight, do you have the integrity of data? There are so many people handling the papers. The waste-hauling industry today is moving quickly toward automating this collection and diversion data. Housley says that the onboard collection software provided by his company tracks 17 different types of information about every load that haulers pick up. The entire process starts first with highly accurate scales and ends with in-depth analysis of the data, he adds. Will the drivers of trucks, though, be able to adjust to the changing technology in their vehicles? Housley says that they will, as long as their managers support them and offer the training that they need. If the drivers are trained they have no trouble at all, he says. But if they are not trained properly, that is when they will have challenges. People don t like things that they don t understand. As soon as they understand it, the drivers love it. The key is for onboard collection software to be easy to use, Housley says. The best systems will provide a touchscreen display that differs little from drivers are used to from their ipads and smartphones. Drives merely have to touch the screen to tell the system that they are picking up a scheduled load at a specific location. That enters the necessary data into the system. And that should be all that s required of drivers whose collection trucks are equipped with onboard collection software. That s it, says Housley. It s when they have to go through screen after screen of information to get what they want. They re not trained for that. You need a very simple interface. When you have that, drivers will adjust to the systems easily. The Most Efficient Scenario Onboard scales and collection software, while productive tools for MSW districts, are still not perfect, especially the onboard scale part of the package. Steve Graham, vehicle segment manager with the 72 MSW MANAGEMENT [ SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015 ]

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8 Columbus, OH, office of Mettler Toledo, says that onboard scales can lose their proper calibration as waste trucks travel more miles. Because of this, municipalities shouldn t rely solely on onboard scales to determine how much solid waste their trucks are carrying. These scales are good tools to help operators more efficiently plan their routes. But drivers and municipalities shouldn t be surprised if the weights they provide are sometimes not completely accurate. Municipalities can more accurately measure the amount of waste trucks are hauling when these vehicles drive over static scales built into the ground when they are entering or leaving landfills or transfer stations. These are the type of scales in which Mettler Toledo specializes. We do see more municipalities using onboard scales, and they are useful products, says Graham. There are definite benefits to using them. They help drivers plan out their routes. They help drivers make sure they are getting their trucks as full as possible without going over weight limits as they head to a landfill or transfer station. But the weights they provide are not as accurate as what you get with a static scale built into the ground. This is why Graham says that the most forward-thinking of municipalities rely on a combination of static in-ground scales and onboard scales and collection software to collect waste in the most cost-efficient way possible. That way, drivers can get weight measurements as they re driving around, says Graham. They can see that they are at 90% of their trucks allowable weight. They then know that they can hit one or two more pick-ups before they have to head back to the landfill or transfer station. And when those drivers are back at the transfer station or landfill? They can drive over an in-ground static scale to generate the most accurate measures of the waste that they are carrying. Graham says that it s good business sense for municipalities to care about accuracy. Those municipalities that aren t relying on the most accurate of scales might end up with lost revenue because they are not charging their customers enough for the waste pickups they provide them. When selling their scales, officials with Mettler Toledo focus on how the accuracy of their static scales can help municipalities earn the fairest prices for the waste collection services they provide. Municipalities should be compensated for the correct amount of waste they collect. Accurate scales make sure that they do not accidentally short-change themselves by undercharging their customers. We are trying to push the accuracy message to our customer base, says Graham. It is a bit of a tradeoff with the price. Our line of static scales is priced higher than some of our competitors. It s a premium brand. So we want to make sure that our customers understand our accuracy message. We seem to get the sale once we explain to them how better accuracy can impact their bottom lines. MSW Dan Rafter is a technical writer and frequent contributor. For related articles: TY Cushion Tire Brings Added Value Aperture holes dissipate heat, reduce weight, and provide a cushion ride. Solid rubber is flat proof and extremely durable Fits Original equipment wheels and has more rubber than tires with expanded wheels Various tread designs available visit us online (888) MSW MANAGEMENT [ SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015 ]