Increased efficiency and improved safety can be achieved at the same time, but to do so operators need to effectively combine their different digital routing technologies for planning and managing performance.
By JF Moneyron
The use of on-board routing systems and smart trucks is opening up many new sources of digital data for solid waste haulers. But to significantly reduce collection costs, operators need to be able to use that data to improve daily operations. The use of digital data, collected automatically can help create a more efficient route plan. Supplementing this with data from the field can help manage performance more effectively.
The term routing can be used to cover a number of types of systems. On-board routing systems are used in the truck cab to support daily operations and performance analysis. Routing is also a feature of many back office systems which may also include route sequencing for single routes. Separately, specialist route optimization software, which is also sometimes termed routing, is used for route planning and the maintenance of multiple routes.
While this is not necessarily a problem, it is important to understand the difference between these technologies, and where they need to work together. In particular, I am seeing that the interface between planning and operations is now becoming a focus of integration for many haulers and municipalities.
At first sight, the requirement for integration seems obvious. On-board systems provide drivers with a list of collection points on their route, and that list of collection points need to come from somewhere. Where route optimization has been employed, this acts as the primary source of the collection points on each route. The plan feeds the driver’s instructions—simple.
But where the information flow is one way, be sure you are not missing an opportunity. To drive up service efficiency and build routes that drivers actually drive, operators need to automatically capture what actually happens on the ground. In others words, the drivers feed the plan.
Good Data Makes for Good Plans
As I have written about before, the use of real-world data underpins any route optimization exercise whether done with paper or software. Route optimization is one of the best returns on investment a solid waste operator can make, achieving typical savings (of resources and costs) in the solid waste sector of between 10 and 20 percent.
The objective in these projects is to optimize how the work is done across multiple routes, by balancing work between vehicles and days, and by sequencing routes. For example, a municipality with 200 routes may be able to reduce that to 170 routes by changing which truck makes which pickups on which day.
Similarly, balancing work across the fleet and across days in order to increase efficiency may also mean that a growing private hauler with that same 200 routes may be able to put off increasing their fleet to run say 220 routes as their customer base grows.
But without real-world data, the estimates of workload that are the basis of route optimization will only ever be guesses. While data on weights and pickups can be captured manually, and has been done so traditionally, the use of digital data captured automatically by smart trucks and on-board systems can provide route designers and route optimization software with much more information to work with, and more accurate, lower risk plans as a result.
Good Plans Need Turning into Reality
The link between planning and operations is sometimes oversimplified, and it is tempting to think that one simply follows the other. In reality, planning and operations should follow a continuous cycle in which good data produces good route design; this provides drivers with good on-board information, and on-board systems correspondingly feed good data back.
The Business Case for On-Board
The business case for on-board systems is generally around achieving higher performance and improving safety. These systems are helping operators support safer drivers who can do more pickups.
On-board technology can tell you which drivers follow the routes, or are slow to work after clock-in, or exhibit unsafe behaviors. From this information, operators can consider how each driver should be uniquely coached into higher productivity using driver-specific coaching reports. In simple terms, the business case is about producing ‘Optimized Drivers’.
However, as I said earlier, where the information flow is one way, we miss the opportunity to automatically capture valuable information that helps improve our route designs.
On-Board and Smart Trucks Provide Lots of Data
One of the biggest changes in the solid waste industry in the last 10 years has been the amount of data now available to operators. As smart trucks and on-board technology becomes more commonplace, they can provide a range of different types of data that can be used to analyze and manage performance.
Features such as lift detection, scale integration, cameras, RFID readers, issue recording, telematics, geocoding and GPS are all now offered by a number of on-board vendors, and operators can expect to have an increasing array of data available over the coming years on both pickups (weights, participation, locations) and drivers (behavior, vehicle performance and driven routes).
So, given an ever-increasing volume of data from numerous sources, how can operators make sure that they do not get overwhelmed? The key is to understand what information is really needed to increase frontline efficiency, and create the capability to easily collect and integrate this data to inform new route designs.
Putting it all Together
In summary, whether you are planning to implement route optimization software, a back-office system, or an on-board solution as your first step towards greater efficiency, it pays to consider how your different routing technologies will work together. Each has benefits in isolation, but by getting these systems working together, operators can move towards a virtuous cycle where drivers help build optimized routes and optimized routes help produce optimized drivers.
Jean-François Moneyron is Vice President of EasyRoute (Atlanta, GA), a leading route optimization software provider for the solid waste and recycling collection industry. He can be reached at (404) 751-4498 or via e-mail at [email protected].