Waste Management

An important concept in the PearlChain Solution is the deal sheet, a contract between parties, a collection of all agreements between you and your customer where the entire workflow is defined. Deal sheets are a mixture of : who's the customer, what services does he buy, what logistics requirements does he have, how does he expect invoices, what discounts are we using, etc. All those questions are a nightmare for a traditional ERP application because by their very nature they are an extremely dynamic issue. A deal sheet holds all the details, in real-time and customer and product independent.
By implementing the PearlChain Concept in Waste Management we have an out-of-the-box-solution for:

Planning of Waste Collection
Container Planning
Route optimization
Track and Trace
Navigation

Planning of Waste Collection

We have two areas of expertise:

Collection of house hold waste (kerb side collection)
Collection of commercial waste/ collection points (glas/paper)/ recyclable materials

Collection of House hold waste

We define collection areas based on amount of bins, type of waste, average waste weight, average collection %, collection scheme, cluster sites.

Based on this information and added with vehicle information like collection system, cycle time, driving speed and volume and max weight, we generate collection areas , calendars and routes.

Commercial waste

Based on order lists, frequency matrix, container types, waste types, service intervals, vehicle restrictions and waste processor we generated the optimal routes per vehicle per day or generate a capacity planning for a longer period.

Extra functionality

All routes can be send to a navigation device for turn by turn directions. A full man/ vehicle planning is also possible including a ghannt chart (dynamic plan screen) and maps.

Container planning

Container planning offers you the functionality to plan and optimize your tours for container collection (Skip containers).

Container planning supports the next action types:

Place
Collect
Change
Customer specific containers

The planning restrictions are:

Vehicle (# slots) trailer (# slots)
Container types (slot and stack height)
Waste types and waste processors (locations)
Depots
Start and end times
Customers specific times

All data are send out via a Webservice to our computers, calculated and the result is send back. Because of the complexity of the calculations it will take app 15 minutes for 15 vehicles and 150 orders to do the calculation.

The results will be available in your own ERP program, orders will be in the optimal route order assigned to the right vehicle.

Additional functionality

All routes can be visualized in a map and a Ghannt Chart (Dynamic Plan screen). The planner can manually add new orders or change the calculated results. New routes will be calculated on the fly. All routes can be send to a navigation system for turn by turn navigation.

Route optimisation

Would you like to know whether your material and personnel capacity is efficiently used?
Can you reduce the number of your winter, waste collection or container routes?
Has your working area been enlargened or reduced and do you therefore need to set up new routes?

Optimisations are performed for large waste collection companies, both public and private, but also for municipal waste companies.

Due to our strong link with the work in the field, results are realistic and usable. Regular contact through interim jobs and consultancy maintain a strong and current tie to daily reality, providing inputs for adapting the software along the process.

Other existing optimisation programmes are usually meant for sending packages. PearlChain targets on the waste sector, meaning picking up packages. This is a major difference in the way routes should be optimised.

The developments continue: besides route optimisations, routes are also exported to navigation systems and routes can be tracked. This created a self-learning system in which programmes, algorithms as well as approach develop and grow.

The results of the optimisations can be imported in our programmes, providing a good overview of the new routes. In our programmes, the routes may be viewed, modified and kept as reference.

The optimisation routines are also available as web service. This means that the results are easily imported in the software you use already. You do not need to buy other programmes or find your way in a variety of different software packages. You stay put in your own programmes and still are able to use the results of our optimisation, made available under a simple button.

Track & Trace

Are your routes implemented the way they were planned?
Do you need to have a good overview of the driving/ salting/ sweeping speed and/ or the volume of salt used?
How do you know when a street was last swept?

For projects involving central government procurements, project accountability is getting more and more important. One of the suitable tools for measuring project goals is a track and trace system. Nowadays also at municipal level track and trace systems are available. With citizens who become more and more aware of the municipal achievements and policies increasingly aimed at performances, it is important to check your own accomplishments and to be able to show your performance to the outside world.

With the development of complete track and trace systems this is possible. There is a variety of products on the market. PearlChain has been active on this market from the beginning and is very knowledgeable on the subject. We can guide you in your choices and process of implementation.

With growing needs in the market for easy and affordable alternatives however we have started the development of our own system.

This is how PearlChain Track & Trace came to the market in 2010. PearlChain Track & Trace is meant for smaller organisations looking for an easy to implement system to check their performance. By omitting extra functions we succeeded to build a simple but reliable alternative to more expensive systems. It is possible to have a real-time representation of the data, but also for data-exchange through WIFI, a good and inexpensive alternative.

PearlChain Track & Trace is fully web-based, so you do not have to install anything on your computer or server. On top of that, you always have the most recent version and remote support is easy. For your comfort we also give customer-specific trainings.

Navigation systems

Are you tired of the pile of paper route cards and maps and do you want to know what alternatives are?
How do you ensure that your new driver implements a route safely and correctly at once?
Do you feel your container routes could be shorter and faster, and would you like this to be calculated quickly?
How do I prove that a route is driven correct and according to what has been agreed
I would like to shorten my routes between the fixed containers, how do I do that?

These are issues we are often confronted with. In order to cope with these type of questions PearlChain has thought of developing a simple but effective system to import your route data into Garmin navigation systems. With help of these systems routes are easy to follow. And this is possible for all your type of routes, be it winter routes, waste collection, street cleansing or whatever route your company uses.

The navigation system we use is the well known Garmin system. This system is relatively cheap and very easy to use. There is no need to install anything special in your vehicles. But far more important, it can meet all the demands.

How does it work? In the PearlChain web applications you manage your routes. The roads of which routes are consisting, are then set in the correct order of driving. With one push on the button you export the routes to the navigation system, exactly the way they have been recorded in the web application. It is possible to enter multiple routes in one device. As a result, you can switch routes rather easy.

Unique aspect of our navigation possibilities is the opportunity to add bicycle paths in your route. Standard street maps generally do not contain bicycle path attributes. This means that it is very difficult or impossible to have bicycle path routes in a navigation system.