Background
In 2019 South Norfolk Council purchased the Digital Depot back-office automation solution as part of their ongoing commitment to digital transformation of their waste and recycling services.
They recognised the need to move with the times and away from time-consuming, printed paperwork and manual processes for their bin collections and the garden subscription service.
They wanted to work smarter and more collaboratively, with better communication with residents, and between crews in their 32 refuse collection vehicles and their back-office staff.
Solution
Their initial solution supported them in enabling more streamlined, paperless business processes to increase operational efficiency and reduce printing costs.
The decision was then taken by South Norfolk Council to expand the investment in Digital Depot to include the full Workflow licence.
Steve Williams, Waste Senior Operation Manager with South Norfolk Council said:
“The waste operations area has seen the greatest efficiencies since Digital Depot was fully introduced, with the immediate visibility of daily tasks as a print out on 3 pages, which was previously a printed list for everyone in the team equating to reams of paper every day saving thousands. We are really pleased with Workflow and the project management of the implementation was simply brilliant.”
“As an organisation we have benefitted from working with one supplier, and a staggered approach to technology integration. Digital Depot, Collections, Workflow, In-Cab and then ReCollect. We’ve accelerated the journey with each new piece of technology and it’s been worthwhile, providing the solution to modernising communications to deliver a more efficient waste collection service.” – Steve Williams, Waste Senior Operation Manager, South Norfolk Council
Implementing In-Cab digital devices
Whilst expanding the investment in Digital Depot to include the full Workflow licence, installation of 32 In-Cab onboard computers began in September 2021. This enabled end-to-end communications between back-office staff, crews on the street, and residents.
Steve said, “Implementing In-Cab has been an interesting journey. Signal boosters were needed in the yard as a fleet of waste trucks starting up at the same time was taking the bandwidth, we hadn’t foreseen the issues of internet coverage, but once this was realised it was resolved.
The crew adopted In-Cab well and liked it. The instantaneous touch button connectivity makes their lives far easier than the previous paper trail. We were selective in who to roll out the technology to first, starting with those positive crew members who would help to convince anyone with any reservations. This worked and the rest of the crew were keen to use the digital devices and provided really positive feedback.
It has become the normal way of working for the crew as everyone benefits from the instantaneous digital missed bin information. Residents are now told that we’re not going back to collect based on regular occurrences. We see in the history in the Collections module any repetitive behaviour and take a view on whether to make a costly return visit in every case.
We’ve done great work with web forms to integrate into the Digital Depot system, which gives many opportunities to link with our web information system. The data is integrated across the business and the online resident tools allow them to self-serve and to request bulky collections, report missed bins and to opt in to be updated about service changes avoiding confusion and reducing calls.”
Introducing digital resident communication tools
In 2022, South Norfolk Council opted to introduce our online waste and recycling communication tools into their website, and to offer an app, to provide residents with self-serve waste collection information 24/7, in order to engage and educate the communities they
serve, and to increase their current recycling rate towards a target 60%.
The tools were successfully launched to residents on the 25th October 2022, with 4,700 downloads of the app in the first month.
Steve Williams said, “Support for the new communication tools from both residents and council
staff has been incredibly positive with many 5* online reviews and a lot of media interest in the communication change.”
“The Waste Team have improved the waste collection information available to those who are looking for it, with the instantly updateable platform to keep residents informed about what matters to them, saving time on customer calls by reducing collection day confusion, whilst saving miles and money on missed bin revisits.”
“Overall I am very pleased with the implementation and the solution it offers our residents. South Norfolk were already using Digital Depot so the integration was more straightforward than if we’d gone elsewhere or tried to implement a self-serve platform for waste information services ourselves.”
“Our website is working well for residents, back office automation is working well for the team and In-Cab devices are working well for the crews. The final piece is to rebalance the routes with the increase in domestic housing growth in the area which is a project we will be
starting next year.”
The App is live for residents to download from the following link right now on the free app, simply visit the App Store or Google Play and search ‘Bin Collections South Norfolk’.
About Routeware
Routeware is a leading technology company for the waste and environmental services sector. In the UK, our software and services have been used by over 200 local authorities and most of the leading waste and resource management companies, helping save an estimated £100M+ for UK local government.
