Technology truly moves at the speed of sound. Even for technologists it is difficult to keep up with many of the advancements, let alone average businessmen and women that don’t have the time to invest in keeping up. At Alpine, it is our goal to keep you abreast of technological changes that either directly impact you now or trends you might want to keep an eye on into the near future.
Once such trend that is impacting the Waste industry is the concept of Smart Technology. Many of us are already accustomed to the use of the term “smart” when speaking of our phones (i.e. “smart” phones). If you recall, as mobile computing systems and hardware evolved in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s our Personal Digital Assistants began to be replaced with phones that were much more powerful, had more capacity, and integrated many of the technological pieces to make life easier for users. The smart phone was born! Since that time, the concept of smart technology has been applied to any device that has automation, interaction and control. This can be your refrigerator, car or even your watch!
So, what does that mean for you as a business owner/operator?
More and more cities around the world are seeking to coordinate all their technological pieces into a unified, seamless unit. When this can be done, these “smart cities” can collect data, streamline operations, and provide data that can help them make better decisions for their residents and businesses. This is the wave of the future. With the internet, cloud technology and flexible applications smart cities now have the technological pieces to accomplish this.
You do not have to look internationally to find examples of such integration. The city of San Jose, California currently has over 1 million residents and has at least 5 haulers servicing them. The challenge for the City was to integrate with the various haulers’ technologies so the residents and businesses could have one point of contact to get service and streamline the customer experience. The city developed a 311 service and website that fulfilled that purpose. The haulers that could not integrate with the city 311 service could not provide service to their residents. The open architecture of Alpine’s solutions allowed for this connectivity and is currently integrating with the City of San Jose’s 311 system. Now, the hauler does not have to expend untold resources to respond to hundreds of customers a day about their bulky item pickups or cart deliveries/repairs, the 311 website automates the process.
If you are currently servicing municipalities (or would like to), this is a trend that directly impacts you. If you do not have the technological capabilities to integrate with theses “smart” systems, then you could be in jeopardy of losing the contract to other haulers that possess that capability. The technology you invest in for your operations and trucks is absolutely critical to the future of your business.
As Alpine’s solutions have evolved, we have kept your future needs in mind. The open architecture of Visual RAMS-Pro allows our users to seamlessly connect to applications easily. Currently Alpine is integrating with city billing systems, prospecting tools, online payment systems, scheduling applications, accounting platforms, scale systems and much more. In addition to the integration potential of Alpine, it’s in-cab solution, Visual On-Route, leverages the power of mobile technology and allows our users to capture hundreds of data points from their routes to make intelligent decisions.