“I deal with a lot of different suppliers and Weightrax are one of the best. The system is always live and is updating constantly. It’s a highly intuitive and extremely user-friendly system. We’ve never looked back.”
Tony Sheard, Contract Supervisor, Pines Resource Recovery Park, Selwyn District Council
Highlights
Summary
Weightrax weighbridge software is enabling Selwyn District Council to front-foot expected new waste reporting requirements, achieving an easy transition to full compliance in advance of the new requirements.
Accurate Weighbridge data enables precise reconciliations and cross referencing. Data flows into Council’s NCS accounting system with no rekeying. Reports generate and send automatically, ensuring everyone gets the right reports at the specified frequency. Weightrax minimised capital costs by integrating the Council’s existing hardware and systems with the new Weightrax software. Council describes Weightrax as ‘intuitive and user-friendly’ and says that when its needs support ‘nothing is a problem’.
Business benefits
- After-hours operation
- Fast service and support
- Easy and foolproof for users
- Real-time data and reporting
- Accurate reconciliations and cross referencing
Key outcomes
- Allows for easy compliance with National Waste Data Framework
- Automated reporting to the right people
- Drill down into data for insights
Selwyn District Council’s Pines Resource Recovery Park receives waste from commercial collectors, weekly kerbside rubbish collections for a population of more than 60,000, and weekly organic waste collections from townships. The site is open to the public, offering rubbish and organics, and a wide range of recycling options. Apart from onsite composting, it is purely a transfer facility, with all materials being carted away after compaction, sorting or consolidation.
A dual weighbridge setup for incoming and outgoing materials sits each side of the weighbridge kiosk. Everything that leaves the site – including e-waste – is weighed out. Trucks that arrive empty to cart material offsite weigh in on arrival, pick up their material and weigh out. The data flows automatically into Weightrax. More than 60 different material categories are loaded into the system, along with pre-approved licence plates for selected customers. This makes transactions simple and efficient and reduces the opportunity for human error.
“Having the pre-loaded material categories align with the expected National Waste Data Framework requirements means that future national reporting requirements will be really simple,” says Selwyn District Council’s Solid Waste Manager, Andrew Boyd.
“We have all the data ready to go, and it’s accurate. We reconcile incoming and outgoing tonnages simply. We’ve also minimised discrepancies between weighbridges at our transfer station and those at the regional landfill. Weightrax makes it easy to drill into the detail and find out where things have gone – it’s significantly better than our old system. It’s very intuitive, which I always think is the sign of a good system.”
The Council exports data out of Weightrax to enable invoicing through its NCS billing and accounting system. Income from different waste categories have their own places in the General Ledger to enable tracking and reporting of both revenue and costs associated with different material streams.
Weightrax generates reports automatically and sends them to the right people at the frequency they specify. This has helped to free up staff time.
“Weightrax makes it easy to drill into the detail for reconciliation, reporting and auditing purposes – it’s significantly better than our old system.”
Andrew Boyd, Solid Waste Manager, Selwyn District Council
Tony Sheard, Contract Supervisor, Pines Resource Recovery Park, says that for him, what’s critical is ‘functionality, reliability and support’.
“With Weightrax nothing is a problem. It doesn’t matter what or when, there’s someone on the line to proactively help you through it. I deal with a lot of different suppliers and Weightrax are one of the best. The system is always live and is updating constantly – but it can still keep running if the internet fails. We’ve never lost data. It’s a highly intuitive and extremely user-friendly system. We’ve never looked back.”
Weightrax helped the Council minimise capital expenditure by integrating existing systems with the new Weightrax software, including a Dallas tag system, traffic lights, and large figure display hardware. Two Weightrax POS (Point of Sale) terminals can each access incoming and outgoing weighbridge data.
“Weightrax were great, they came onsite and helped us adapt their system to ours. It saved us cost and ensured drivers could stay with the system they know,” Tony Sheard says.
“Absolutely I would recommend Weightrax. They’ve made my life way easier.”
Tony Sheard, Contract Supervisor, Pines Resource Recovery Park, Selwyn District Council
Selwyn District Council was looking for new weighbridge software as its old software had no support and was losing functionality. It visited Ashburton District Council to see a Weightrax system working in real time and spoke with the kiosk operator to get their honest opinion.
“We voted for Weightrax in part because it’s so user friendly and adaptable to each site. Whether you’re a quarry or a transfer station, it can work in any environment. SDC are further developing the site to include a re-use shop and salvage yard. We’ll be wanting POS functions and the ability to track tonnages diverted from landfill. It’ll be easy with Weightrax,” says Tony Sheard.
After hours, the site switches to an automated, contactless system. At close of business the operator restarts Weightrax in automated mode. Pre-approved contractors simply tag in to weigh in, and tag again to weigh out.
“Absolutely I would recommend Weightrax. Weightrax has never presented any problems for us, and you don’t often get to say that about new technology! They’ve made my life way easier,” Tony Sheard says.
About Selwyn District Council
Selwyn District Council manages rubbish, recycling and organic waste services for more than 60,000 people in central Canterbury. A weekly kerbside rubbish collection is transported to the Pines Resource Recovery Park for compaction, transfer and disposal at the Kate Valley Regional Landfill. Recycling is collected fortnightly and taken directly to EcoCentral in Christchurch for sorting, processing and sale. Organic waste is collected weekly and transported to the Pines Resource Recovery Park for composting. See: www.selwyn.govt.nz/pines