Choosing software for scales

At transfer stations and material recovery facilities (MRFs), a great deal of material comes in and out each day, and finding software that reliably reports weights and other data is critical for waste and recycling facilities.

Andrea Rodriguez, director of engineering at Houston-based FCC Environmental Services, helped design a MRF in Dallas that opened in 2017. She says user-friendliness and the ability to customize data are important factors to consider when choosing software to deliver raw data from scales to administrative offices at MRFs.

“This type of software can do everything from weighing and giving you data analysis on technical things to [delivering data for] your financial statements, your invoices and everything else you may want,” she says.

The material entering the MRF may vary throughout the day, she adds. While haulers may bring in single-stream recycling loads, commercial customers may arrive with presorted plastics or old corrugated containers.

“User-friendliness itself is really important because the rotation of labor in this industry is very big,” she says. “You want to make sure that you can train someone on this system in less than an hour.”

In MRFs the firm designed in Dallas and Houston both use a product that "aligns very well with our needs. It’s a friendly user interface, which is also a very important thing for us,” she says.

Rodriguez says the software uses drop-down menus in its interface, and it’s difficult to make mistakes when recording data.

When a truck enters, she says “You just need to enter who the customer is and the material … and it's very easy because everything is already in the system.”

Although the incoming and outgoing weights are the most important data, truck numbers, customer identification and material type are just a few of the other data points the software can report. Rodriguez says the ability to customize is important because different trucks may carry different materials and contracts with MRF owners can vary, as well.

“In Dallas, for example, we are getting inbound weights; we are putting in the employee numbers,” she says. “You can get a lot of data, and it depends on your contract. In Houston, we don't have to collect the employee number for example.”

Customer support and training

In addition to usability and accessibility, Rodriguez says MRFs should seek software companies that provide strong training and customer support because if the software malfunctions, the incoming and outgoing trucks do not stop.

Shortly after opening the Dallas MRF, she says the facility’s network was running on a WiFi hotspot and transitioned to fiber optic cable through AT&T. However, that transition did not go as planned. The software company came out quickly and helped fix the problem.

“We had one day when we had to take notes manually, but that creates so much room for mistakes,” she says.

She says FCC’s contract with the software company stipulates that the firm will resolve any problems within 24 hours, and she advises others looking for weighing software to seek out a similar level of technical support.

While training in Dallas took several days because it included training for accounting staff, information technology staff and operators, the training in FCC’s Houston MRF, which opened in 2019, with the same software took a single day because it was just for operators.

The newer version of the software in Houston includes kiosks where drivers can enter data. As a backup measure, there also is a camera that can capture data from labels on trucks.

Another choice MRF operators need to consider is whether to use a kiosk system where drivers enter data or a radio frequency identification (RFID) system, she says.

In certain situations, she says feels the kiosk systems are more reliable, but adds that opinions vary. Some of the variance is driven by differences in the facility’s layout. For instance, she says sun glare can make it difficult for the RFID system to read data, but dirt also can obscure labels.

Rodriguez says one of the first factors she considers when choosing software is the level of customer support because the MRF operates 20 hours a day and any downtime is very difficult to manage.

“The second thing for me is making sure [the software] is able to connect to our systems,” she says. Weighing software must integrate seamlessly with FCC’s other software.