In December 2015 Leeds-based Forge Recycling installed PurGo software to work with its dynamic bin-weighing systems to identify heavy bins and potential missed revenue, and streamline its services to customers. Since introducing the new system and a new Pay-By-Weight service the company has continued to expand at an even faster pace.
Harvey Mills, Director and Co-Founder of Forge Recycling: “In the past two years we’ve more than doubled the size of our fleet, taken on more staff and increased revenue by 40% per annum.”
“I’m in no doubt that introducing PurGo has had a major influence on the business and that our rate of growth is in part due to the improvements we have made since using the system. Issue reporting is far slicker now. We have live data so we know exactly where each and every vehicle is and what is happening. We can report a missed collection to a customer within minutes and they love that.”
The company’s fleet of vehicles is equipped with the market leading, weights and measures approved ENVIROWEIGH bin-weighing system from Vehicle Weighing Solutions Ltd (VWS) and around 85% of the bins collected and emptied are now weighed.
PurGo, from VWS Software Solutions is an ERP software system designed specifically for waste management companies, recycling operators and materials processing facilities, to streamline processes, standardise procedures, provide monitoring and deliver reporting across all areas of the business.
Harvey: “It means that we can now charge for any excess weight collected, which is additional revenue that was previously being missed. However, this isn’t just an increased revenue exercise. The data enables us to be proactive in helping our customers to streamline the management of their waste.”
“The data enables us to be proactive in helping our customers to streamline the management of their waste.” Harvey Mills, Director and Co-Founder of Forge Recycling
As well as providing a more dynamic, accurate and efficient service, PurGo has enabled Forge Recycling to identify new revenue streams and manage costly customers more effectively.
“We have introduced a new food waste and glass collection service, which means our customers can reduce the weight of their bins and improve their recycling rates.”
PurGo integrates seamlessly with VWS bin-weighing systems, as well as other business systems and software, so that packages already implemented into a business become one with its waste collection activities. The software and interface are highly automated, intuitive and user friendly. Customers pay a monthly subscription for the use of the software, which includes the support service should they need it.
A key benefit of PurGo is its ability to reduce, or in certain cases completely eradicate, the need for traditional administration processes and paperwork.
Since introducing PurGo Forge Recycling has become an entirely paperless operation. A powerful round management tool, PurGo uses in-cab PDAs for scheduling, route optimisation, exception reporting, live vehicle location and activity reporting. PurGo data is communicated from the back office to the round crew via handheld devices and fixed in vehicle tablets. It joins up all aspects of the operation including customer services, transport management, workshop engineering, weighbridge operations, waste collection crews and finance departments.
Harvey: “Very quickly we went from paper route sheets to using PDAs. People can be resistant to change but everyone really embraced the new system and took it on board. Our drivers now use the PDAs to do their daily vehicle walk around checks, record pick-ups and drop-offs. They can also report any issues immediately. Removing the need for worksheets and paper-trails has definitely saved man hours.”
Forge uses PurGo to schedule waste collections as well as manage ad-hoc deliveries of roll on roll off vehicles or skips. The software even manages the production of the annual duty of care transfer note required by every customer.
“The PurGo reporting function is very straightforward. We use the daily dash board, which gives us a summary of the previous day’s missed collections. We recently won a major tender and this was in large part due to the reporting we could provide via PurGo.”
Andy Mirecki, VWS Software Solutions: “PurGo offers a huge number of reports, which can be tailored to each customer’s requirements enabling them to monitor specific aspects of their operations and service delivery. For example, the software allows you to monitor the profitability and efficiency of individual rounds or even individual trucks. The dashboard is easy to understand and provides all the important information at a glance e.g. collections that are behind schedule, ahead of schedule or complete; or how many failed lifts.”
“Forge Recycling are a great company to work with. They are enthusiastic and keen to find better ways of doing things. Technology plays a key role and as early adopters they were one of our first customers.”