The 7 Most Important Topics for the Digital Future in Disposal Logistics (Part 1)

“Competitive edge through efficient routing.” Among others, the following topics were subject to heated discussion at the VOEB (association of Austrian disposal companies) conference in Lower Austrian Guntramsdorf on 22.03.2017. Our colleague Alexander Ries-Schweitzer was on the ground and participated in the discussions.

Of course, everyone is talking about industry 4.0. Concerning disposal logistics, one of the effects could be individualised collection cycles of waste containers. To this end, customers and/or containers are included proactively in the collection process in order to avoid collecting half-empty containers. This means that there is a level indication which, e.g. at a container filling level of 70 %, automatically notifies the waste collector’s ERP system which then automatically initiates an order and collection. However, this system has pros and cons (see Rigid Routing vs. Dynamic Routing in part 2).

Predictive maintenance for vehicles and containers would be another IoT application. Connection and evaluation of data from trucks and information from containers allow reasonable scheduling of vehicle/container maintenance.

RFID in container management was a topic of extensive discussions. The general opinion was that container management is crucial. Many conference participants confirmed that they want to know which container is where at any given time. RFID can help with this, however, there are significant differences between passive and active RFIDs in terms of process and technology.

Conclusion: Good and sound container management supporting the driver with identifying containers is indispensable. Furthermore, the trend goes towards identification of containers with simultaneous weight measurement during emptying and assessment of the waste separation quality.

Another topic of discussion was that you must know whether a potential contract will even carry a yield already during offer preparation. It is often the case that you only know whether or not you earned money after fulfilling the contract since you did not know the costs in detail beforehand. For the future, participants consider marginal costing sensible and desirable when creating contracts.

Many customers of disposal companies demand transparent tours. They want to know who collected which container when and which volumes. What has been common practice in the forwarding industry for decades is also demanded in disposal logistics (key word “track & trace”).

The digital waste calendar allows citizens to access the waste calendar from mobile devices. There are, furthermore, plans to allow influencing the collection of containers (e.g. dustbins or containers) via an app.  The following scenarios could be imagined: you send a notification when you are away on holiday or when the dustbin is half-empty and does not need to be collected (e.g. https://www.abfallplus.de/smartphone-app/). These notifications then, of course, influence scheduling of the waste disposal service provider.