How One Hauler Has Evolved with Its Software Provider

From the largest corporation to the small mom-and-pop shop, waste haulers continue to embrace the benefits of route optimization and operations management software.

For the past 16 years, North Metro Waste and Hauling Inc., based in Ball Ground, Ga., has been using DesertMicro’s route optimization and management software to improve operational efficiencies and streamline routing.

North Metro chose DesertMicro) “because it’ easy to use, regularly scheduled updates and great support staff,” says Sheryl Collie, president and CEO of North Metro Waste and Hauling Inc. based in Ball Ground, Ga. “(It) consolidates my routing, billing, material tracking, profit analysis all into one user-friendly system. It also gives us the ability to generate custom reports.”

North Metro started operations in January 2000 and provides clearing, hauling, demolition, dump truck and roll off dumpster services to businesses, contractors and residents in the surrounding area. Prior to choosing the DesertMicro RouteManager software, the company used QuickBooks accounting and all routing and inventory was done manually.

Collie says North Metro has saved a significant amount of time using the RouteManager software.

“Invoicing and routing time has been cut by 90 percent, which has reduced administrative time and ability to concentrate more on customer service,” she says. “(We have the) ability to run a profit analysis to see where the business needs to be tweaked and are able to run reports that are not available in QuickBooks.”

Jacksonville, Fla.-based DesertMicro has offered route optimization technology in various iterations for more than 20 years. More than 1,300 companies use the DesertMicro suite of software, from dispatch and scheduling to scale house operations, customer management to billing and cash receipts.

RouteManager is just one of the software solutions from DesertMicro, which helps manage an entire business, not just the books, routing and billing. The company also offers MapManager that performs mapping, routing and route optimization in conjunction with the DesertMicro Manager Suite of software products. These include the RouteManagerOnline Software module as well as the RouteWarrior Mobile Work Order Management Application.

“The MapManager Routing and Optimization utilizes multiple and complex algorithms developed by DesertMicro and overlays these on to a mapping program, like Google Maps, for ease of viewing,” says DesertMicro President and CEO Barry Grahek.

Users can then geocode the location of a customer or stop and immediately view on the map to ensure correct route assignment. Once assigned to the selected route, the MapManager software in conjunction with the RouteManagerOnline program allows the user the option to view the new stop along with the other sequenced stops and to either manually add the new stop to the existing stop sequence, or to run the optimization tool to look at improvement in both time and fuel efficiency. MapManager uses the DesertMicro algorithms to calculate the shortest driving time, adjust time windows and look for available right hand turns to further prevent cross traffic delays.

“MapManager has evolved from a basic mapping tool that relied solely on GPS, capturing X and Y coordinates, to a sophisticated mapping, planning and optimization tool that looks at multiple algorithms and calculations before providing its suggestions,” says Grahek. “Mapping programs used to view the optimized routes have improved accuracy and are more consistent of the location capture, resulting in a more user friendly and viable routing resource.”

MapManager integrates with all of the DesertMicro Manager and Warrior products.

“There is no need for third party integrations that can often prove unstable and worse often require updates and oversight to keep both sides communicating,” says Grahek.