By Joe Postelnick, Medline Industries Inc.
Medline Industries Inc. is America's largest privately held national manufacturer and distributor of health care supplies and services. Founded in 1966, our company's roots date back 90 years when it started as a garment manufacturer. With six manufacturing facilities in North America and over 25 joint venture manufacturing plants worldwide, Medline manufactures many of our 100,000 products, encompassing medical-surgical items and one of the largest textile lines in the industry.
In today's cost-competitive marketplace, Medline sees unprecedented pressure on improving production and distribution efficiencies. Such emphasis on boosting efficiency is not optional. It's what is necessary to remain competitive and still provide an acceptable profit margin in an ever-more demanding world market. Medline sells and delivers direct to the marketplace, eliminating middleman, and allowing us to offer the most highly competitive prices over an incredibly broad spectrum of products.
The Healthcare industry is among the most heavily pressured to keep a lid on costs. Because of the importance of the role of these products, such cost reduction must be accomplished without giving up quality or even local availability. Medline is a company that has been more than up to that challenge. The company markets in every state and in more than 20 countries, and maintains 27 distribution centers to deliver products to its health care customers where and when they need them. We provide products and services to the entire continuum of care, including hospitals, extended care facilities, surgery centers, commercial laundries, home care dealers, home care agencies, physician offices and other alternate care sites.
In response to pressures in the health care industry to lower costs, including reduced Medicare reimbursements, Medline has developed some of the most innovative and successful cost-saving solutions in the marketplace.
With such a high volume of production and distribution of products and materials, a significant amount of waste products are generated by the operations. The disposal of non-recyclable waste products is a product-related expense that many companies automatically assume to be beyond their control--except perhaps to negotiate for the lowest hauling rates. Fortunately, Medline discovered that this assumption was false! Just as in production and material handling, automation technology can greatly improve the efficiency of waste removal operations. This has proven to be a great way to lower costs without making sacrifices of any kind.
A technology solution.
In 2002, we were introduced to a high-tech product that claimed to significantly reduce the cost of waste removal through a two-step process...
First Step - accurately measure waste compactor container fullness.
Second Step - automatically notify the hauler to pick up a full container.
While that sounds simple enough, some real technology is needed to make the process work smoothly and accurately. Understanding the problem and the possible solution helped us to decide to give the monitoring technology a try.
While most company managers scarcely give them a second look, the large waste compactors that are stationed at the rear of many large facilities perform an important function. Waste compactors are a surprisingly vital cog in the waste stream. By compressing bulky waste into a large steel container, the trash can be efficiently hauled away with a minimum of pickups by a local hauler. However, it is vital that the container become as full as possible or the number of pickups and the corresponding expenses will quickly multiply. Low-tech methods of monitoring fullness, such as pressure gauges, fullness lights (which are switched on by peak pressure readings), counting the number of compactions and tapping the sides of the container are all grossly inaccurate. They result either in premature pickups (and the added costs) or potentially hazardous and costly overflows. Until discovering a better alternative, our approach was to use scheduled pickups as a way around the problem, but that too was an imperfect solution.
So, we had a good understanding of the problem and knew that there was room for improvement. When One Plus Corporation of Northbrook, Illinois came to us with a proposed solution, we were eager to give it a test. Their Waste Edge Monitor uses a digital pressure sensor to capture every stroke of the compactor ram pressing waste into the container. That data is analyzed by their computerized monitor, which is translated into a remarkably accurate picture of container fullness. When the monitor says the container is full, it automatically notifies the hauler via fax to make a pickup and advises us that the hauler has been contacted. When the pickup is made, that too is recorded.
After reviewing the monitoring system specifications, we met with One Plus Corporation and ran preliminary figures numbers as to what sort of cost savings we might expect by adding a Waste Edge Monitor. At the first location to be evaluated, we had a pick-up scheduled for three times per week. While every situation is different, we were advised that the minimum savings anticipated would be 20%. That potential made it worth while to install a unit and evaluate results. One Plus offers several different versions of the Waste Edge Fullness Monitor. The one we chose creates and sends pickup requests via fax. Other models can provide computer or pager notification.
The Monitor itself is housed in an all-weather metal NEMA enclosure and is totally maintenance-free. It mounts near the compactor and required connection to power and phone lines. The installation work required can be done by an electrician or experienced plant maintenance person. After our unit was installed and adjusted, we halted the scheduled pickups and let the Monitor make the calls. Results were closely observed for a 30-day evaluation period.
Before Waste Edge, hauler billing indicated that our container weights varied widely, ranging from 3-1/2 to 8 tons. When the hauler started picking up only after the Waste Edge call, the pickup weights increased to around 10 tons and have held that level consistently. Based on what we saw, we increased savings predictions to a 46% reduction in pick-ups. That would translate into a $27,000 annual reduction in hauling charges for the first compactor alone. On the strength of the new numbers, we added two more monitors at our Waukegan, Illinois site and plan for monitor additions at other sites.
The change in method of pickups from scheduled to on-demand did require renegotiations of contracts with several haulers. This did not turn out to be a significant problem and has even yielded some operational benefits, including as-needed Saturday pickups without premium.
Additional Benefits
While our primary motivation for evaluating the Fullness Monitor was a reduction in waste hauling expenses, we have also seen other benefits. When workflow varies, there is no need to further alter our hauler agreements or relationships. We could go from working overtime one week to a vacation shutdown the next, without ever talking to the hauler. Because the Monitor is watching fullness 24/7, the hauler is always given the notice required to make a timely pickup, without risk of a rush charge.
There are other administrative benefits. Because the Full Fax sends us a duplicate of the pickup request, we have a record of the exact time and date of the request to better evaluate hauler responsiveness and actual billing.
Final Thoughts
As mentioned earlier in this piece, in today's lean-running business environment, our managers must be on the alert for ways to stay at peak operational efficiency. No area of operations should be exempt, especially trash. With fuel and waste disposal costs on the rise, we expect the benefits of automated compactor monitoring to increase steadily. And while the Monitors do their work in the background, without drawing much attention, their efficiencies cannot be overlooked. The savings potential is just too great.
For more information on Medline, visit: www.medline.com. (One Medline Place Mundelein, Illinois 60060 1-800-MEDLINE; Fax: 1-800-351-1512). For information on Waste Edge Monitors, contact: One Plus Corp., Phone: 847-498-0955 Fax: 847-498-1570 email: info@oneplus.com or visit www.oneplus.com (3182 MacArthur Blvd., Northbrook, IL 60062).
Global Chemical Company Reduces Local Waste Pick-Up Costs Through Technology
WACKER CHEMICAL CORPORATION ACHIEVES AN ANNUAL 400% ROI
By Mike Decker, Utility Engineer Wacker Chemical
Adrian, Michigan -- Wacker Chemical Corporation is a division of the Wacker Group, headquartered in Munich, Germany. The company is a global technology leader in the production of silicones, ceramics, polysilicon, and specialties (high-quality binders and polymer additives, specialty chemicals and biotechnology). Our diverse activities are organized within four independently operating business divisions: SILTRONIC, WACKER SILICONES, WACKER SPECIALTIES and WACKER CERAMICS. They hold technology leadership positions in many markets and collaborate closely with customers to provide tailored solutions for tomorrow.
The company invests heavily in chemical R&D as well as in processing technology. While Wacker has long understood the benefits of technology in the production process, like many companies, we hadn't given much thought to applying it to the reduction of waste removal costs. At our plant in Adrian Michigan, we discovered that it's well worth paying attention to this often overlooked area.
Simply put, we were not monitoring how much trash we were disposing, weekly, monthly or annually. We had the hauler come in a couple of times a week to haul away the compactor box and nobody here knew whether the box was full, empty or what percentage in between. It’s kind of funny when you think about it--we pride ourselves on total efficiency in our production, but with trash, nobody really understood the inefficiencies of the process.
The turning point came in a 1999 conversation with Wacker Chemical’s compactor distributor. It was an afterthought, an "Oh, by the way" conversation. He told us there were reliable, technology-based ways to accurately monitor the fullness of a compactor container and automatically order pickups on an as-needed basis. He thought that such a system could save us a lot of money by reducing the number of trash pickups needed. The remote monitoring concept was much more accurate than so-called fullness lights and gauges. Because these devices are very basic, they are easily fooled, resulting in making pickup calls before they are really needed.
That made sense to our efficiency-oriented engineers, so at the suggestion of the distributor, we learned about the Waste Edge Monitoring Systems developed by One Plus Corporation. According to our distributor, the remote monitors were being used by many of his customers to automatically request pick-ups as needed, via messages to fax machines or computers; and were actually reducing the number of pick-ups by an average of 30 to 40%. Such a reduction in the number of pick-up requests results in substantial cost reduction for the customer.
After learning how the system worked, we ordered a monitor, and the rest is history. We installed a remote waste compactor fullness Monitoring System in January of 2000 on a trial basis. The results were encouraging, to say the least, so that by the next month, new contracts were signed with our hauler based on this automated on-demand pickup approach.
The System uses a patented process of electronically monitoring a compactor’s container status. Fullness levels are communicated to a PC or, if desired, to a fax machine at the hauler’s office advising when the container is full. The fax approach was selected in the initial Wacker Chemical setup. For us, this hands-off operation was one of the most appealing features of the system. No involvement by Wacker personnel was necessary--fax machines handled the communications.
Not that there were no problems, however. Actually, at first, a faulty fax machine at the hauler affected response times and required phone calls. Working with the company's customer support engineers, Wacker Chemical quickly uncovered the problem, corrected it and adjusted procedures. Two fax messages are now sent to the hauler, and as a backup, to Wacker in Adrian as well.
Our operational experience is that utilization of the Waste Edge 100 Monitor System has improved plant waste management in many, many ways.
- Because of its hands-off operation, it costs almost nothing in internal administration costs.
- The reports generated help in the review and justification of hauler billings.
- The system’s intelligence monitors fullness levels and compactor pressure settings. It even eliminates false ‘full’ readings caused by jams or other temporary pressure surges.
- Guesswork about container fullness levels during holiday and seasonal activities is no longer necessary. As a matter of fact, the system can be programmed to eliminate weekend or holiday pick-ups without the risk of overflows.
- Timely pick-ups eliminate the risk of overweight containers.
- The work environment around the pick-up area is cleaner and safer.
- Most importantly, the cost-savings are substantial and ongoing.
In March of 2004, Wacker upgraded our System by adding the WasteView Compactor Monitoring System. This is a Web-based system that allows the user to remotely monitor, on any computer, all compactor container activity and fullness. It graphically displays and generates reports on all compactor operations, fullness and pickups. It even gives a heads-up on potential compactor malfunctions. These reports can be downloaded into Windows applications, such as Excel®.
Wacker Chemicals has found the system flexible enough to be used on our private network, rather than the Internet.
All in all, the waste compactor monitoring has made my life a lot easier and, for our company, it makes our operation just that much more efficient. Costs are down. Workflow is uninterrupted and we now have accurate documentation of the amount of waste generated. When you are competing for business globally, every dollar counts.
For more information on Wacker Chemical, visit: www.wacker.com. (3301 Sutton Road Adrian, MI 49221). For information on Waste Edge Monitors, contact: One Plus Corp., Phone: 847-498-0955 Fax: 847-498-1570 email: info@oneplus.com or visit www.oneplus.com (3182 MacArthur Blvd., Northbrook, IL 60062).