On 4 April 2018 London’s premier recycling and waste management company, Bywaters upgraded its ERP system with PurGo waste management software. The company quickly noticed the benefits, as did customers, particularly in terms of cost and resource efficiencies.
Bywaters has been providing waste management services to London for over 100 years. The company started life at the end of the First World War as one man, John Glover, operating from a horse and cart. Still run by the Glover family, Bywaters is now the Capital’s premier recycling and waste management company, employing over 400 people and serving thousands of businesses across the city.
After extensive trials, Bywaters chose to invest in PurGo to manage all its waste collection and management processes end to end. PurGo replaces a previous outdated system, which didn’t integrate all the company’s operations and mobile devices.
Craig Gregory, Associate Director for Commercial Operations, Bywaters: “I have project managed many software projects over the years and they’ve all proven very difficult to implement so I was very sceptical about PurGo from the start. However, dealing with VWS Software Solutions has been a very different experience. They are honest, transparent and easy to deal with. The project was delivered on target, and on budget.
“The transition from our old system to PurGo was very good, mainly due to the team at VWS Software Solutions who went above and beyond to ensure a smooth conversion.”
PurGo software and interface is highly automated, intuitive and user-friendly, and enables all the information about jobs to be uploaded remotely on PDAs carried by drivers. Customers can receive automatic job confirmations and Waste Transfer Notes (WTN) via email and have access to in-depth information from the name of the driver and the type of vehicle, to the time they arrived on site and the amount of waste collected. Key features include route planning and optimisation functions, printable invoices and the ability to measure profitability.
PurGo joins up all aspect of Bywaters’ operations including customer services, transport management, workshop engineering, its weighbridge and MRF operations, waste collection crews and finance departments. It also integrates with the company’s existing software systems to provide comprehensive control over all information in one place.
Kelly Geraldo, Bywaters’ IT Applications Manager, said of the upgrade to PurGo:
“This is some of the most state-of-the-art software available. We are very pleased with how it is working and it is enabling cost savings because we can work more efficiently and effectively – which is beneficial to ourselves and our customers.”
A fully integrated bin-weighing and software management system
PurGo integrates seamlessly with the VWS’ Enviroweigh dynamic bin-weighing systems, which is fitted to 24 Bywaters collection vehicles.
Craig Gregory, Bywaters: “PurGo is proving to be a very robust, easy to use system. It integrates well with our bin weighing and other business systems, and we are using it to run our business very effectively.”
“PurGo is proving to be a very robust, easy to use system. It integrates well with our bin weighing and other business systems, and we are using it to run our business very effectively.”
Paper-free!
A key benefit of PurGo is its ability to reduce or even eradicate the need for traditional administrative processes and paperwork. In this case Bywaters has been able to streamline its operations and run a paperless system, resulting in efficiency savings and a more sustainable service for its clients.
Added Kelly: “The system has already reduced our stationary costs. Now there is no paper waste, only emails – fitting with Bywaters’ commitment to sustainability.
An internal review of PurGo at Bywaters, asked users across different departments to give their feedback on the system. Staff highlighted a number of features, which help them perform their roles more effectively. These included the easy to use reporting, planning, reviewing and searching screens, with all the information available one place, as well as live vehicle tracking and the ability to identify different sites. The automation of waste transfer tickets, which previously would need to be manually processed was emphasised as a significant time-saver, and PurGo’s weighbridge functions, such as automatic total weights on the transaction screen, were also well received.
Andy Mirecki, Managing Director, VWS Software Solutions: “Bywaters runs a 24/7 operation, and despite effectively having no down-time for maintenance the system works very effectively. We have completed Phase 1 of the project and are now moving onto Phase 2, which involves developing the system further to directly integrate with suppliers and customers 3rd party systems.”