Case Studies

Xlerate helps to shift a load of old rubbish

Waste Management have built a thriving business based on rubbish and recycle collections. They operate waste and recyclable collections and management services all over the country. Waste Managements branch in New Plymouth oversees the collection of residential and commercial waste and recyclables from Urenui in the north to Waitotara in the south. Thats a lot of bins and they use a fleet of 25 trucks to get the job done.

Their Challenge

In October 2006, Waste Management secured the contract for the residential collections for the three District Councils in Taranaki thats over 35,000 households each week. Prior to taking up the contract with Waste Management, one of the councils had concerns on how their complaint process would be handled, in particular missed collections, as under the new contract, the level of service to be provided differed significantly to the previous collection contract. In order to ensure that customers were to receive the high level of service the Council wanted, Waste Management agreed that they needed a system that could tell the difference between a missed collection and a late bin. So Waste Management had a chat to TeamTalk to see what they could do.

Our Solution

This was the sort of challenge that TeamTalks XLERATE fleet productivity tool was designed for. With an XLERATE unit installed in each truck, Waste Management are able to track the location of their vehicles, like most GPS units available on the market. This was a handy feature for Waste Management, but what really set XLERATE apart from the competition is that it is able to link into sensors installed throughout the truck, giving locations and times for certain events like using the lifting arm on Waste Managements trucks.

We had been using TeamTalks mobile radio service for our voice communications for years, and when we were negotiating this contract, TeamTalk came out to visit and showed us a bit of what XLERATE could do. It was TeamTalks idea to install a sensor on the lifting arm. Their technical guys came out and spent a few days testing it out on one of our trucks and I was impressed with the results, explains Andrew Sargent, Collection Area Manager for Waste Management.

The Benefits

XLERATE has made life easier for both Andrew and the council. I can immediately
find out what is happening on any of our runs right down to the time and exact location each bin is lifted. And because the user-interface with XLERATE is online, we have been able to give the councils call centre direct access to the movements and activity records for each truck. So when a complaint comes in, they can look it up immediately and come up with a solution straight away.