As a scrap metal recycler, the logistics of how you dispatch trucks and containers to pick up and deliver material has a significant impact on your bottom line. Logistics is how you manage the transportation and storage of your material, from its point of origin to the point of consumption. It involves planning and transportation, to make sure the material is in the right place at the right time. Effective logistics is vital for your scrapyard to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Dispatch and container tracking software can give your company a leg up in optimizing your logistics to give you the most competitive advantage.
What Dispatch Software Can Do for Scrap Metal Recyclers’ Logistics
The ability to optimize your dispatching, be it for one truck or many vehicles, offers opportunities for great efficiency and savings by optimizing fuel consumption and helping to lower vehicle maintenance and other costs. The purpose of truck dispatching software is to help a company deploy their truck fleets and rollingstock as efficiently as possible with software-assisted route optimization and asset tracking. The software helps keep track of trucks and containers, communicates with drivers, and provides them with routing information, among other things.
Industry-Specific Versus Off-the-Shelf Software
The demand for this type of information has led to a proliferation of off-the-shelf truck dispatch software products that can be used by any type of business. The downside of this type of solution is that it does not integrate with your entire operation. An industry-specific software will seamlessly coordinate with the purchases, inventory, contracts, and accounting systems of your business. This coordination provides for an even greater optimization, since your entire operation is run through one system.
In the scrap metal recycling industry, good truck dispatch software will be able to boost your business in the following five ways:
- Provide complete visibility over activity and processes, from start to finish, in real time.
- Conduct precision scheduling for container movements and vendor servicing, this allows for routing and fuel optimization.
- Provide updates in real time on truck fleet activity, driver activity and productivity.
- Calculate total landed costs of materials.
- Simultaneously dispatch from multiple locations while providing reporting to one central location.
Optimize Decision Making with Accurate Reports
It’s easier to optimize important business decisions when accurate information is available at your fingertips. ScrapWare provides industry-specific software to recyclers that includes reports that make it stand out from off-the-shelf products. ScrapWare’s Dispatch Module includes reports on:
- Dispatch scheduling and analysis in detail and by vendor
- Trip miles, delays and summaries
- Fleet miles analysis and trip analysis
- Yard Delay
- No Load Report
- Mileage by Truck
- Driver productivity, and many others
Easy to Use
A software cannot optimize your logistics if it is too hard for your people to use. Ease of use gives ScrapWare an advantage over other systems. ScrapWare is known for combining advanced functionality with simplistic usability. ScrapWare has made sure its design is intuitive to help ensure data accuracy and make it easy for scrap yard staff. After you fill in the blanks, the Dispatch Scheduler processes your data to optimize fleet allocation and timing. It will even present the dispatcher with vendor servicing priorities. ScrapWare can customize and print dispatch tickets, apply multiple containers to one ticket and assign a number automatically to each ticket.
More Optimization from Seamless Integration
The Truck Dispatch Module is powerful as a stand-alone product, but when teamed with ScrapWare’s other modules, it can seamlessly integrate with all other aspects of a scrap metal recycling business to optimize every aspect of your business operation.
Container Tracking Software
In addition to truck dispatching, having real-time and direct information on all your containers can provide the critical edge to help keep your operations moving. The purpose of container tracking software is to provide a bird’s eye-view of where all your containers are at any given moment with the help of GPS tracking devices. This information can enable users to optimize the movement of containers and utilize them in the most productive way possible.
A good container tracking software for scrap metal recyclers will allow them to do the following:
- Reduce manual, redundant tasks necessary to keep track of inventory
- Gain visibility over rollingstock
- Keep track of your asset types, purchase date and any notes about the inventory
- Get updates on container location and determine container and vendor turnover
- Accurately spot containers that are not turning over as they should so the vendor can be contacted to resolve the issue
- Assist with finding “lost” containers or pinpoint containers that are damaged when they are placed at a given vendor location
- Interface with the other digital aspects of a scrap yard’s business
- Interface with mapping software so that dispatchers can optimize truck routes
ScrapWare software users may access up-to-date information using its Container Tracking Module’s in-depth reports to help users manage their inventory. Reports present and summarize information on inventory, location, turnover and vendor turnover, among other things.
ScrapWare’s Container Tracking Module simplifies processes as a stand- alone feature, but for additional functionality, it can be interfaced with the Truck Dispatch Module. Container movement can be documented with either module, but whichever method is chosen, ScrapWare will provide precise after-the-fact location reports for container movements. Users can then download container locations to mapping software and receive detailed street maps of container locations throughout an operating area. The maps can then be used to help dispatch staff optimize scheduling for trucks.
ScrapWare’s truck dispatch and container tracking software provides valuable insights for fast decision making. It can provide complete visibility over all activity and processes, from start to finish, in real time. It will conduct precision scheduling for truck and container movements and vendor servicing, allowing for routing and fuel optimization. By optimizing logistics in this way, your scrapyard can stay one step ahead, also optimizing your bottom line.
About ScrapWare Corporation: Since 1989, Rockville, Maryland-based ScrapWare Corporation has been the software of choice for the recycling industry. Its ease of installation and simplicity saves users time and money while helping them achieve compliance and maintain accurate business insights. With state-of-the-art functionality tailored to each organization’s unique requirements, ScrapWare is an advanced dynamic software solution that alleviates the most pressing recycling industry worries. For more information, please call (301) 517-8500 or visit https://www.scrapware.com/.