Adding value to waste processing - with smart assets
Not just a waste collector, but the greenest waste processor around. That’s the ambition of Van Happen Containers. The Dutch company expects 70% of collected waste to be reused, making Van Happen Containers increasingly a supplier of raw materials. But to achieve this, the company needed digital innovation to manage and track their assets.
Smart asset management for
efficient waste processing
Digitally lean to be green
If it’s up to Van Happen Containers, they won’t be just a waste collector for much longer. The company leases waste containers and transports waste. But 70% of the waste collected will be turned into new raw materials. So, how do you become an efficient waste-processing company? By deploying IoT for smart asset management to track each container and soon: to measure exactly how full containers are.
Excelling in asset management
They actually make new underground containers from the waste they collect. Circular use of waste material is not only a vision for Van Happen Containers, it’s a reality. In order to be the greenest waste processor in The Netherlands, the company needs to work as efficiently as possible. Former CFO Leo Merks states: ‘To maintain our growth, we wanted to excel in asset and waste stream management. This means digital innovation is a high priority.’
The Internet of Assets
Using connected sensors, Van Happen Containers links their assets – about 16,000 waste containers – to smart devices carried by their drivers and to computer systems for the back office. ‘Together with KPN, we are making more and more assets smarter. With the connectivity of KPN IoT, we can track and monitor our huge asset base in real time, in a way that is economically viable’, says Merks.
‘Together with KPN, we are making more and more assets smarter, thanks to the Internet of Things’
- Leo Merks, former CFO Van Happen Containers
Efficient tracking. And much more to come.
KPN IoT delivers M2M and LoRa connectivity to find and monitor almost anything. Teaming up with KPN, waste company Van Happen Containers can track all of its 11,000 above-ground containers. Van Happen Containers former CFO Leo Merks: ‘By making the containers on our customer’s premises smarter, we can see in real-time where these assets are and how long they have been there.
But there’s more digital innovation on the way. Van Happen Containers is currently working with KPN IoT to fit its 5,000 underground containers with sensors. With these sensors, the company can not only track the location of the assets, but also measure how full the containers are. Using data analysis, it’s possible to optimize the routes for their drivers: containers only need to be emptied when they’re almost full. Thanks to IoT, Van Happen Containers knows which containers will be full in the next 24 hours.
The future of waste
This is only the beginning. Leo Marks states Van Happen Containers’ digital ambition: ‘It’s not just the locating and emptying of the containers going digital, but the entire waste-processing chain, including separation and production. Connecting more of our business assets, we will generate more and more data. These combined data sets will optimize our core processes and our interaction with partners and customers even further.’
‘Together with KPN, we are making more and more assets smarter, thanks to the Internet of Things’- Leo Merks, former CFO Van Happen Containers
