THE CLIENT: The Client is responsible for collecting daily waste (trash, recyclables, compostable, etc.) from approximately 300+ locations across the city of Ann Arbor and its neighboring areas. Along with daily collections, the client also reports waste collected by location to various stakeholders.
THE CHALLENGE: The existing waste collection and management process was labor-intensive, and paper driven. It included daily printing and distribution of route-sheets for the drivers to record waste collection volumes using clipboards. At the end of each route, all route-sheets were collected and sent to the business office where the collection volume was entered across eight Excel spreadsheets which was then uploaded into Microsoft-Access database.
The entire process was dependent on the timely receipt of waste collection route-sheets without being soiled and/or lost during transit. Customer billing and management reporting were dependent on the collection volume from the route-sheets getting accurately and timely transcribed and uploaded to the Microsoft-Access database.
ALPAC was tasked to automate and re-engineer the entire waste collection process with the goal of reducing paper, standardizing processes, lowering error rate, improving customer billing and management reporting.
THE SOLUTION: ALPAC used a two-fold approach –
1. ALPAC first developed an iOS mobile app to replace the daily printing and distribution of route-sheets. Each driver was assigned with a company-issued iPad which was used to record waste collection volume, along with capturing images that explained why trash was not being collected. This data was automatically transmitted in real-time to a cloud-hosted Oracle database using API technology. This helped improve route efficiency and eliminated recording errors.
2. Next, ALPAC developed a .NET framework based web application that was used by the business office supervisors to actively manage, monitor, and report daily waste collection activities that were being recorded by the iOS mobile app. This allowed the supervisor to know the exact location of each truck thereby improving customer satisfaction and eliminating redundant trips.
BENEFITS REALIZED:
- The combination of an iOS mobile app and a web-based backend application helped automate the entire waste collection process
- Customer billing was now being done daily in real-time with click of a button
- Management reports were now possible in real-time without any delays
- Driver efficiency increased by eliminating clipboards which resulted in elimination of duplicate work and reduction in errors and inaccuracies
- The ability to capture images of trash-site helped with the communications between the supervisor and customers thereby reducing driver fatigue
- The system also helped increase the client’s customer satisfaction due to timely trash pickup, improved communication, along with timely and accurate billing