‘Efficiency, Efficiency, Efficiency!’ – Tamworth Case Study
Overview
The manager for waste resource and recovery at Tamworth Regional Council Morné Hattingh and his waste team manage and look after 4 landfills and seven waste transfer stations. Their primary landfill is open from 8am to 4.45pm seven days a week while their rural facilities are only open on certain days and are operated through the use of tablet and Eftpos devices.
The Mandalay products that Tamworth Regional Council currently uses are the Facility Core Product which includes ticketing and data administration, EFTPOS integration and most recently they have included Facility Analytics and Reporting into their portfolio. They are also looking to include automatic licence plate recognition in the near future.
Morné himself has been using Mandalay products for over seven years, even prior to his time at Tamworth Regional Council, and it is the only waste software product he chooses to use throughout his waste management career.
‘Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. It’s a very efficient product to use. It works easy, staff like it, which is good, and so far, it has been extremely positive for us’ –Morné Hattingh.
Requirements
The primary requirement for Tamworth focused on analytics and ensuring staff didn’t have to spend too much time producing reports and spreadsheets. They wanted the ability to pull the data out that they needed in a matter of seconds.
To meet this requirement, they extended their product portfolio with Mandalay to also include Facility Analytics and Reporting.
‘There are various types of data sets available with different product categories and it’s all just a click away.’ – Morné Hattingh
Helping Meet Objectives
The biggest focus for this council and waste team is accurate data collection and making sure that everyone in every division can interpret this data with ease. When compared to other data sets, there’s a very big difference in this space and Mandalay really stands out.
There are other stakeholders they report to with this data, so it’s immensely important that it’s accurate and easy to obtain. Morné acknowledges that Mandalay’s data and analytics platform is very effective for explaining how everything works at a waste facility and makes it easy for their external stakeholders to understand that data.
‘The data itself and having it at our fingertips is extremely important for us. ‘ – MornéHattingh
The Challenge
Morné and his team are required to present data and analytics on key areas of the organisation to stakeholders, and like everything in the waste industry, the request for that data is often extremely reactive.
If they were in a situation where they were running a waste division that didn’t have access to analytics and everything was in spreadsheets, the reporting could only be done once per month. That would be the only time they could afford to have staff spend two days working on compiling the reports, which would involve populating 9 to 15 production reports. And because that report is only produced once per month, the data would get old very quickly.
This challenge is overcome with Facility Analytics and Reporting from Mandalay. If for example a councillor or regulator has a particular question or requires particular information, the waste team can quickly produce that data with no issue, and it will be current, with data measured right up to the day prior to the report being produced. They simply wouldn’t have that information to hand over prior to using Mandalay, and it would have been very difficult to have information readily available in a timely manner too.
‘Having staff spend two days on the production of reports is a long time, but with access to analytics, last time I checked the time spent on reports was only 42 seconds.’ – Morné Hattingh
The Benefits of Working with Mandalay
In line with the theme being covered in this case study, the biggest benefit comes down to data and analytics. With Mandalay, it’s so easy to get straight down to the data that’s needed and look at what the finance department needs, what the business support department needs, and what the administration department needs.
Another big benefit that comes with Facility Data and Analytics is the massive saving in time, which is a huge measure of success for them. The time spent on the production of reports is obvious and incredibly valuable to the organisation.
Data and analytics also leads to better transparency and better business processes. Morné’s role involves running a division, and in doing that he needs to tell people what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong. Analytics provides that platform with ease. Because he has been working with the software for so long, Morne has also built his processes and procedures for working with the teams and customers around the Mandalay model.
‘For me it’s all about Analytics. Analytics is the backbone of what I need to be able to do what I do.’ – Morné Hattingh
Mandalay also has its benefits from a financial perspective. What is really beneficial is if a finance department sends through the latest finance information and a couple of customers have 60 or 90 days outstanding, it’s possible to quickly change those customers to cash only with ease.
EFTPOS Integration deserves a mention here too. Having EFTPOS Integration for weighbridge attendants saves a lot of time and it is a function that Morné and his team strongly recommend for others to consider as an addition to the Facility Core Product.
The Outcome
The data coming out of Mandalay software is most often used to measure and track cancelled tickets and daily transactions. This is really useful information for them when it comes to performing maintenance on the weighbridge and trying to understand when the weighbridge is going to be the busiest and when it’s not.
Morné says that while it may sound like useless information, when running a landfill, there’s not a lot of time when you have to run maintenance within your facility, especially when you run multiple facilities. Having that data really helps them make the best use of their time.
And while no fraud issues have come up so far at Tamworth, Morné is glad they have a system they can feel confident in if anything did occur.
‘We’re lucky enough that we haven’t had to deal with anything in the fraud space, which is good for us, but these things can change overnight. We do feel that we’ve allowed the ability to be able to differentiate and really understand what’s occurred without even looking at CCTV footage.’ – Morné Hattingh
Key Takeaway
Whether you are a private enterprise or with local government, there are so many benefits to be gained from Mandalay’s software and particularly within the Facility Analytics and Reporting product when it comes to data.
‘I really like the balance Mandalay got with analytics. And when it comes to waste management in the local government space, I think Mandalay has done well with the balance here too. ‘ – Morné Hattingh
Visit our Facility Product Suite and Facility Analytics and Reporting pages to learn more about these Mandalay Products.
