January 16, 2025 • 31 mins
In this conversation, Stephanie McLarty and Geoff Aardsma discuss the intersection of sustainability and technology, particularly focusing on how automation, AI, and big data can enhance business efficiency and support circular economy initiatives. Jeff shares insights on AMCS's role in resource management, the importance of engaging upstream in recycling processes, and the current state of technology adoption in various industries. They also explore the financial implications of implementing these technologies, the need for senior leadership buy-in, and the significance of maintaining curiosity in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Takeaways
- Digital tools are essential for enabling circularity.
- Automation can significantly improve recycling efficiency.
- Companies are still early in their digital transformation journey.
- Regulations influence sustainability practices but businesses act for competitive advantage.
- Mature organizations spread automation across all functions.
- Financial analysis is key to justifying automation investments.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Automation, AI, big data these are certainly the
talk of the year, but how can weleverage these tools to advance
our business circularity goals?
Welcome to the Circular Future.
Your access to thought leadersand innovations to help you be a
business sustainabilitychampion, even if it's not your
core job.
I'm your host, StephanieMcLarty, Head of Sustainability
(00:24):
at Quantum Lifecycle Partners.
As I was preparing for thispodcast, I asked Google what are
the top trends for businessesthis year, and at the top of the
list is sustainability, thengenerative AI and AI itself, and
I think that's a great summaryof how businesses are feeling
today.
We know we need to be moresustainable and circular and, in
(00:47):
some ways, we're beingregulated to do so.
We also need to boost ourefficiency and productivity.
So how do we do all of this?
Well, that's exactly where AI,big data and automation can come
in and be a huge opportunityfor any organization, can come
in and be a huge opportunity forany organization.
(01:08):
With me to unpack how this isall possible is Jeff Ardsma,
Vice President Solutions forAMCS Group, a global enterprise
software solution provider thatmerges business performance and
sustainability.
Jeff has had over 15 years ofexperience in optimizing waste
recycling and operations invarious industries, including
bringing container sensors andoptimization software to market.
(01:31):
Welcome to the podcast, Jeff.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Thank you, stephanie, really excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Really happy that you're here and to dive into
this important topic, but firstlet me ask you a little bit
about your world.
What would be?
Three things that we wouldn'tnecessarily know about AMCS?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, no thanks, and I'm really excited about these
topics.
It's something that we at AMCSlive and breathe every day and
excited to bring your audience alittle closer to how it might
impact their everyday lives aswell.
You know, the first thing thatwe probably should share about
AMCS is that we're really morethan people might think of us.
(02:14):
We're an end-to-end cloudsolutions provider for
resource-intensive industries.
We're most recognizably tied towaste and recycling, but we
have really expanded in recentyears to stretch across the
value chain and impact a numberof different industries.
(02:35):
At core to our brand that theconcept of sustainability and
business performance orprofitability are not
independent of each other but,in fact, can be drivers and help
accelerate each of themindependently.
(02:57):
So we've introduced the conceptof performance sustainability.
It's something that we've beentracking over the last two to
three years and this year wereally aligned our company, our
mission and all of our solutionsaround this concept.
In simple form rightProfitability and sustainability
, or green and growth.
They're not incompatible,they're not incongruous.
(03:20):
So we see an opportunity forsustainability to be a
differentiator, a lever forunique growth for our customers
and the industries that we serve, and we see that our customers
are acting in this way every day, and so it's a huge part of
(03:40):
what we do and what oursolutions help to enable what we
do and what our solutions helpto enable.
The last thing that I'd shareis you know that AMCS has
stretched into areas beyondresource management or logistics
, but we interact withmanufacturers and we're really
(04:00):
heavily focused on bringingconcepts of sustainability,
health and safety, optimization,ai and automation into the
resource-intensive industriesthat we work with closely.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
That's amazing, and I've done a lot of reading on
AMCS and what struck me is thatit seems like you very much see
yourself as part of the circulareconomy, like you are a
circular economy ERP.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, and actually we see ourselves as enablers of
the circular economy, and one ofthe ways that we really have to
think about enablingcircularity is providing digital
tools to help automate the verydifficult work that goes into
it.
When we talk aboutresource-intensive industries,
(04:50):
it's just that it takes a lot ofequipment, it takes a lot of
people, it takes a lot of energyto manage all of the materials
that are introduced into ourcommerce systems, into our
manufacturing, right into ourretail systems.
You know it's striking thedeeper you get into the waste
(05:11):
and recycling industry.
The entire economy that'sreally built around managing
these materials that are eitherat end of life or coming back
into a circular economy.
And it takes vehicles,containers, into a circular
economy.
And it takes vehicles,containers, facilities, robotics
(05:31):
, you know, shipping containers,everything, and so having all
of those moving parts and peopleand companies interacting with
each other really require aplatform to digitize it and give
the foundations to handle thelarge amount of data and
transactions in a way, that ofThings, as tools to help with
this digital transformation.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
What exactly are we talking about, jeff, because I
think there's not necessarily acommon understanding of what
these terms are, but it piquespeople's interest.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
At its simplest and I myself have to remind me of the
growing definition of IoT.
It's about digitizing andconnecting physical pieces of
equipment and physical motionswithin our everyday work job,
(06:40):
and we're enabling that vehicleto capture data through
telematics right and trackingits movement and engine
performance and fuel consumption.
Putting digital interfaces forthe driver to be able to
communicate back what'shappening on a collection route
or a delivery route andcommunicate that back seamlessly
(07:04):
without having to radio in.
Putting cameras on a vehicle,for example, to help automate
the detection of overfilledcontainers or contamination
that's coming into a collectionroute.
Putting sensors or, you know,other connected devices into the
collection containers so thatwe can actually get insight into
(07:28):
what's happening in themwithout sending a vehicle.
You know there and those arejust some small examples in the
logistics part of the industriesthat we serve of how we're
connecting these physical assetswhether they're fixed or moving
assets, whether they're fixedor moving assets to a digital
(08:10):
network and then really enablingthe operators of our businesses
to data insights and visibilityto our key operators, who can
make better decisions, deliverservices more efficiently, lower
costs, manage materials in abetter way, communicate to their
customers how to best managetheir you know their materials
that they might be discarding ortrying to recycle.
All that just becomes moreefficient when we take kind of
(08:33):
the manual communication or, youknow, the verbal communication
out of it and let machines dothat work for us.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah, do the heavy lifting if you will.
So I'm curious around thespecifics of how this applies to
circularity.
You've just touched on moreresource efficiency and better
bottom lines.
Are you actually seeing, then,an increase of recycling and
other aspects of circularity aswell?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
an increase of recycling and other aspects of
circularity as well.
One of the things that we'vereally been excited about this
year is engaging in the upstreamdetection of contamination in
recycling routes.
For the longest time, recyclingfacilities had a nearly
impossible task.
Right, they're a manufacturingfacility that has no control
over the materials or the inputsthat are coming into it.
(09:25):
Right, they've got a vehiclethat goes out, collects
materials or recycling fromresidents or businesses and they
come and dump it at therecycling facility and then, you
know, through some magic ormanual picking or robotics,
they're expected to turn it intousable commodities that have
value on the market and can beturned into new materials.
(09:47):
That resulted in a lot ofcontamination, a lot of wasted
materials, a lot of logisticsthat were unnecessary to have to
remove material that shouldn'thave ended up at the recycling
facility in the first place, alot of safety risks for
dangerous materials that couldstart fires or injure employees
or cause equipment downtime andmake the facilities less
(10:11):
efficient.
And so what we found is actuallybeing able to measure at the
point of collection if thematerial is going to be
consistent with what therecycling facility can actually
handle, and being able to dothat upstream, at the collection
(10:31):
route and being able to feedthat information when there is
contamination back to the peoplethat are generating it can
impact behavior.
But the quality of the materialand the efficiency of the
recycling facilities hasincreased so much, when you
engage upstream and at the pointof generation, that our
operators are really excited andit solves problems that they
(10:53):
couldn't solve otherwise insidetheir facilities.
They had to go out into thecommunities and engage with
their customers and the peoplethat are throwing these
materials away and it helps witheducation, it helps lower costs
and ultimately it helps recyclemore material and bring it into
the circular supply chain tocome back as new consumer goods.
(11:15):
And so we do see a huge impactfrom that type of automation
that otherwise wouldn't havebeen possible automation that
otherwise wouldn't have beenpossible.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
That's neat it reminds me of in Edmonton we
have installed a machine thatuses x-ray and AI and machine
learning to help identifybatteries within products,
because for us, we're e-wasterecyclers in that location, and
so it's helping to identify thehazards before they go through
the shredder and thereforedecrease the instances of fires
(11:49):
and, ultimately, safety issues.
So many people say show me thedata, like what this actually
means quantified.
Are you able to speak to anyquantifiable numbers in terms of
this impact of these tools onefficiency and safety and all
that?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I'll give some examples.
Just around what it's a productthat we call Vision AI, and this
is using cameras on collectionvehicles to automate the
detection of overages orcontamination through a
collection route.
What we found is, when we focuson trying to determine where
(12:31):
containers are over full at thepoint of collection, that when
we automate that, the detectionrate goes up 100% versus manual
detection.
So, relying on a driver to markand report back when there's an
overfilled container, when weautomate that with a video feed
(12:53):
and with AI, we've seen nearly adoubling of the capture of that
information.
You know, one of the thingsthat is really important for our
customers specifically is allthe additional costs that are
associated with overfill.
So when we have captured moreoverfill rates, they're actually
able to generate more revenueand save more money, and so even
(13:17):
a 10% overfill rate captureincrease can result in upwards
of $5,000 a month for a singlecollection route.
So for our large operators,it's very significant in making
sure that they're providing theright service and that they're
communicating back to theircustomers.
What's happening upwards of 30%to 40% reduction in
(13:41):
contamination across acollection route, which means
30% to 40% less incompatiblematerial for a recycling
facility is actually showing upat that recycling facility and
being put in the right place togo to the right disposal
(14:05):
facility the first time withouthaving to double touch it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, those are huge numbers all around and I want to
get into how we actuallyimplement these things.
But I'm curious.
This makes so much sense, right?
You talk about these numbers oflike 30%, 100% gains.
How much are you seeingcompanies actually embrace this
(14:33):
and embrace the possibility ofthis?
Are we early on the journey asa whole, or are we later stage?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, I think we do find ourselves still fairly
early in the journey, and a lotof it has to do with um
companies going through theirown digital transformation uh
activities.
Um, you know there are so manyopportunities out there, uh, for
engagement into new technologyum, that we're actually seeing,
(15:04):
you know, kind of a stressed ITinfrastructure inside of
companies that have too muchdemand.
Right, there's too much, thereare too many improvement
opportunities there.
So what we try to help ourclients go through is a
prioritization exercise andidentify what are the most
impactful activities that youcould engage in from a
(15:27):
technology perspective, whatwould have the best impact on
your customers, on youremployees, on your company as a
whole, the impacts that youwould look to have in the
communities you service and goout and do the research of the
best way to implement those Forour customers.
We're finding that these typesof automations across manual
(15:51):
processes that can be stood upas standalone offerings or
integrated into a wider ITinfrastructure is representing
some low hanging fruit that justmakes sense to get involved in
straight away right now and itdoesn't take a huge lift to
integrate into their operations.
(16:13):
And so these types of decisionswe're seeing becoming easier,
but we are certainly still earlyin the journey and would look
to see the opportunitiescontinue to grow as more
companies adopt these types ofsolutions.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
So what you recommend is basically sitting down,
doing a prioritization exerciseand then identifying the
low-hanging fruit.
I saw a checklist in one ofyour documents in terms of
different things to do aroundinventory management forecasting
, material quality assessments,machine learning, imaging tools,
(16:52):
material valuation with dynamicpricing agility to make
adjustments following qualitycontrol assessments.
Is this a checklist of some ofthe possibilities that a company
could really implement?
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, and we see it again.
It's showing how dynamic theindustry, that the industries
that we service are, and thevast opportunities that they
have to improve their businessoperations.
One of the ways that we'veencouraged to look through this
right you've got youroperational KPIs, you probably
have your financial KPIs.
(17:28):
You've got your operationalKPIs, you probably have your
financial KPIs.
We like looking at this througha sustainability measurement as
well.
Where you have the mostgreenhouse gas emissions or
where you have your scope onescope, two emissions the
heaviest to apply automation andtechnology to help impact that.
(17:52):
And one thing that weabsolutely know is that when you
reduce your greenhouse gasemissions or your carbon impact
resulting from your operations,you lower costs and you're able
to provide more competitiveservices to your customers and
you're able to identify newgrowth opportunities quicker.
And so we really like havingthat sustainability measurement
(18:17):
to complement operational andfinancial measurement as a way
to really help with thatprioritization exercise.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I love that, jeff and you are speaking my language.
We think about all those thingstoo.
At Quantum and, in reality, asupplier to a company.
Their emissions are theircustomers' scope three emissions
.
So the more that you can reduceyour own emissions as a company
, it's actually good for yourcustomers and who you serve,
(18:45):
because they may be using yourdata, or will be using your data
to calculate their scope threeemissions.
So I think that's really smartthat you think about it from a
sustainability lens.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So for our customers as well.
Right so for, like a waste andrecycling operator who's looking
to measure their greenhouse gasemissions, one of the most
challenging things for them isactually scope three, right.
So when your part of yourrecycling operation, for example
, relies on subcontractors orsuppliers, that makes your
(19:18):
sustainability measurement thatmuch more difficult.
So what we're actually seeingis a trend of vertical
integration and recyclersgetting more involved in a wider
part of the supply chain andcontrolling the path for
materials that they're managingto actually get back into the
supply chain.
So, whether that's companiesthat are investing in plastic
(19:41):
polymer plants, companies thatare investing from an organics
management perspectivemanagement perspective getting
more into packaging, mulch orcompost and bringing it directly
to market themselves to reducethe reliance on suppliers but
also control more of theoperations and increases
(20:06):
competitive advantage, and itmakes their measurement and
optimization activities muchmore streamlined and simple to
implement.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well, the new Basel changes that made me think of
that that it's really makingcompanies rethink how they do
business, particularly aroundplastics recycling.
I'm wondering how much doregulations actually change the
space and change the adoption ofsome of these tools to increase
their efficiency andsustainability?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, well, we certainly see regulation as
having an influence.
The challenge with regulationis that enforcement doesn't
always follow quickly whenregulations or legislation comes
in, certainly for the majorityof the materials that we find in
the non-hazardous solid wasteside of the business.
(21:01):
And so, while that might be aninfluencer of longer term
decisions, the short termdecisions we see influenced by
competitive advantage and growthaspirations and so, but there's
there's an overlap, right?
So things that our regulationsare looking to direct the
(21:22):
industry to do as best practicethat would be best for the
environment and for thecommunities that we service are
also good for business.
And so we see businesses takingit upon themselves to implement
these improvements simplybecause they can increase
margins and grow into newmarkets and gain new customers
(21:43):
or increase competitiveadvantages against, you know,
new entrants into markets thatthey serve.
So we do see the regulationscoming, but we see businesses
making these decisions fasterbecause they're good for their
bottom line.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
They're good for business and, to what you said
early on in our conversation, Ibelieve it too.
It's possible to be asustainable business and a good
business.
So they're not trade-offs, jeff.
We've been speaking aboutcompanies that are adopting this
sort of early on in theirjourney, but what about
companies that are further alongin implementing this?
(22:26):
Can you give us some examplesof what are they working on,
what are they adopting and thekind of results that they're
seeing?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, so what we see with customers that have gone
past the initial adoption of AIand automation is actually
spreading that across morebusiness functions.
So, for example, bringing thoseinsights that we're talking
(22:54):
about from a collection vehicleabout what's happening on a
route and actually planning moreof their downstream operations
based on that data.
Based on that data, so they'restandardizing and automating you
know further across thelifecycle of their operation and
(23:19):
scaling the impacts as a result.
So, if you can think thatyou've got logistics operations
that would feed into aprocessing or manufacturing
style operation, and then thathas to go into packaging and
marketing to sell to an endmarket and everybody needs to be
(23:41):
invoiced or paid or, you know,balances transferred between
company entities all along thatjourney, our customers that are
now very mature have layeredautomation across all of that.
It's resulting in reduced backoffice burden, right?
(24:03):
So they're holding lessoverhead, meaning they're
putting more investment intotheir operations rather than
into their administration, andthey're making more informed
strategic decisions and they'regrowing faster.
So they're making acquisitiondecisions faster.
They're making those verticalintegration decisions faster and
growing into new operationsthat can reduce their reliance
(24:27):
on suppliers, to new operationsthat can reduce their reliance
on suppliers those types ofthings simply happen faster and
more confidently when theautomation exists across the
operation.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So it essentially enables them to scale faster and
, frankly, we're talking aboutall the circular elements to
this.
In a sense, scale circularityas well.
Exactly, jeff.
Let's move into our how-tosection, where I ask you some
how-to questions and you cananswer them as short or as long
as you like.
The first one is on thefinancial side of this.
(25:02):
So certainly there's a cost I'msure there's an upfront cost to
implementing these tools,perhaps an ongoing cost as well
how to quantify the paybackperiod to invest in automation
and these types of tools overall?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, return on investment is an absolutely
critical part of getting off theground.
We recommend getting closelyaligned with your vendors and
partners to help with thatanalysis.
So one of the things that we dowith all of our clients is we
sit down and go through thisreturn on investment exercise
(25:41):
Not only what are the key painpoints or points of efficiency
and optimization thatdigitization effort can provide,
but what's the operationalstructure or the organizational
structure or the IT structurethat our customers need to have
to support it and maintain itright and make sure that it's
kept up to date and they can getthrough organizational change
(26:04):
management and adoption right,make sure that it sticks and
actually delivers the value thatthey expect.
And so interacting with expertsand vendors can help you get
through that.
And every digital engagementhas its own calculation, and so
(26:25):
you really need to treat it assuch, know what you're trying to
achieve, know the value you'reaiming to deliver, and then
understand the resources thatit's going to take to get that
done, and that should lead youto a very confident decision on
the return that you can expectfrom that investment.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Okay, awesome.
Now you mentioned differentdepartments, different players
within an organization.
How to decide who should beresponsible for this area,
especially when a lot of theseprojects touch operations and
sustainability and IT.
Who should manage this?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Any technology effort should be bolstered by a solid
IT backbone, but we like toreally think about the impact on
the customer.
So, for the companies that wework with, who are you trying to
provide services to?
What value are you going toprovide to them?
(27:23):
How does this ultimately landat the folks that pay your
checks?
And that helps us stay focusedon the things that matter to
their business, and the thingsbecause it's always the things
that matter to their customersthat are the most important.
So you always need an ITinfrastructure.
But then we go straight to whatmatters to your customer and
(27:44):
how can you grow your businessbest with that in mind, and
that's usually a really goodrecipe for success.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
And how you structure your team.
Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
Last one we talk a lot on thispodcast about not only the
initiatives or ideas that youcan implement, but also a
reality for a lot oforganizations is getting buy-in
from senior leaders to actuallymove ahead and implement these
(28:12):
things.
So, from your view in thisspace, how to get buy-in from
your senior leaders, anyrecommendations that way?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, alignment with strategic goals that would be
meaningful to a seniorleadership sponsor for a
particular project is key.
So, whether you are looking toincrease revenue or increase
sorry, so whether you're lookingto increase revenue, grow into
(28:44):
new markets, reduce costs andincrease margins, or you have a
more sustainably minded goal ofrecycling more material,
increasing the impact you mighthave environmentally on the
communities that you service,whatever that might be, finding
what's important at thestrategic level that already has
(29:07):
a senior leadership sponsor andproviding value directly to
achieving that strategic goal isthe best way to get that senior
leadership buy-in.
And it's critical You've got tohave it.
You can't skip that step.
Otherwise it's really hard tochange organizations and change
(29:28):
people and change processwithout that type of leadership
buy-in.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Well, that's true, and even if you get the initial
yes, without that true buy-infrom those senior leaders, the
sustainability of the long-termimplementation may be in
question.
I would imagine.
So great advice, Jeff.
We have covered so much heretoday and given so much to our
listeners to think about.
(29:56):
It's been great.
What would you say would be onefinal piece of advice you would
leave them with regarding thiswhole area of automation and all
these digital tools that theycan use to transform their
business?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, I love to advise people to stay curious.
There's so much changing in thecomposition of the materials
that are all around us.
There's so much changing intechnology.
There's so much changing in thecompetitive landscape of how we
all run our businesses thatremaining curious and remaining
(30:33):
educated and seeking out newopportunities to do things
differently is always the bestpractice.
Plus, it makes working fun, Ifind.
So that's always my firstadvice Remain curious.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I love that One of our core values at Quantum is
relentless curiosity.
So for sure, and you know, wecan really build a better
mousetrap, as we say, if youstay curious and keep up as the
world evolves.
Jeff, thank you so much.
This has been really insightfulfor me and, I'm sure, for our
listeners, so we reallyappreciate having you here.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Thank you for the opportunity and love listening
to the podcast and all of yourguests, so please continue on.
It's been a great opportunityfor me.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Thanks and remember, if you have old or redundant
electronics for reuse orrecycling, we'd love to chat
Head on over toquantumlifecyclecom and contact
us.
This is a Quantum Lifecyclepodcast and the producer is
Sanjay Trivedi.
Thank you for being a CircularFuture Champion in your company
and beyond.
(31:40):
Logging off.
Automation, AI, big data these are certainly the
talk of the year, but how can weleverage these tools to advance
our business circularity goals?
Welcome to the Circular Future.
Your access to thought leadersand innovations to help you be a
business sustainabilitychampion, even if it's not your
core job.
I'm your host, StephanieMcLarty, Head of Sustainability
(00:24):
at Quantum Lifecycle Partners.
As I was preparing for thispodcast, I asked Google what are
the top trends for businessesthis year, and at the top of the
list is sustainability, thengenerative AI and AI itself, and
I think that's a great summaryof how businesses are feeling
today.
We know we need to be moresustainable and circular and, in
(00:47):
some ways, we're beingregulated to do so.
We also need to boost ourefficiency and productivity.
So how do we do all of this?
Well, that's exactly where AI,big data and automation can come
in and be a huge opportunityfor any organization, can come
in and be a huge opportunity forany organization.
(01:08):
With me to unpack how this isall possible is Jeff Ardsma,
Vice President Solutions forAMCS Group, a global enterprise
software solution provider thatmerges business performance and
sustainability.
Jeff has had over 15 years ofexperience in optimizing waste
recycling and operations invarious industries, including
bringing container sensors andoptimization software to market.
(01:31):
Welcome to the podcast, Jeff.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Thank you, stephanie, really excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Really happy that you're here and to dive into
this important topic, but firstlet me ask you a little bit
about your world.
What would be?
Three things that we wouldn'tnecessarily know about AMCS?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, no thanks, and I'm really excited about these
topics.
It's something that we at AMCSlive and breathe every day and
excited to bring your audience alittle closer to how it might
impact their everyday lives aswell.
You know, the first thing thatwe probably should share about
AMCS is that we're really morethan people might think of us.
(02:14):
We're an end-to-end cloudsolutions provider for
resource-intensive industries.
We're most recognizably tied towaste and recycling, but we
have really expanded in recentyears to stretch across the
value chain and impact a numberof different industries.
(02:35):
At core to our brand that theconcept of sustainability and
business performance orprofitability are not
independent of each other but,in fact, can be drivers and help
accelerate each of themindependently.
(02:57):
So we've introduced the conceptof performance sustainability.
It's something that we've beentracking over the last two to
three years and this year wereally aligned our company, our
mission and all of our solutionsaround this concept.
In simple form rightProfitability and sustainability
, or green and growth.
They're not incompatible,they're not incongruous.
(03:20):
So we see an opportunity forsustainability to be a
differentiator, a lever forunique growth for our customers
and the industries that we serve, and we see that our customers
are acting in this way every day, and so it's a huge part of
(03:40):
what we do and what oursolutions help to enable what we
do and what our solutions helpto enable.
The last thing that I'd shareis you know that AMCS has
stretched into areas beyondresource management or logistics
, but we interact withmanufacturers and we're really
(04:00):
heavily focused on bringingconcepts of sustainability,
health and safety, optimization,ai and automation into the
resource-intensive industriesthat we work with closely.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
That's amazing, and I've done a lot of reading on
AMCS and what struck me is thatit seems like you very much see
yourself as part of the circulareconomy, like you are a
circular economy ERP.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, and actually we see ourselves as enablers of
the circular economy, and one ofthe ways that we really have to
think about enablingcircularity is providing digital
tools to help automate the verydifficult work that goes into
it.
When we talk aboutresource-intensive industries,
(04:50):
it's just that it takes a lot ofequipment, it takes a lot of
people, it takes a lot of energyto manage all of the materials
that are introduced into ourcommerce systems, into our
manufacturing, right into ourretail systems.
You know it's striking thedeeper you get into the waste
(05:11):
and recycling industry.
The entire economy that'sreally built around managing
these materials that are eitherat end of life or coming back
into a circular economy.
And it takes vehicles,containers, into a circular
economy.
And it takes vehicles,containers, facilities, robotics
(05:31):
, you know, shipping containers,everything, and so having all
of those moving parts and peopleand companies interacting with
each other really require aplatform to digitize it and give
the foundations to handle thelarge amount of data and
transactions in a way, that ofThings, as tools to help with
this digital transformation.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
What exactly are we talking about, jeff, because I
think there's not necessarily acommon understanding of what
these terms are, but it piquespeople's interest.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
At its simplest and I myself have to remind me of the
growing definition of IoT.
It's about digitizing andconnecting physical pieces of
equipment and physical motionswithin our everyday work job,
(06:40):
and we're enabling that vehicleto capture data through
telematics right and trackingits movement and engine
performance and fuel consumption.
Putting digital interfaces forthe driver to be able to
communicate back what'shappening on a collection route
or a delivery route andcommunicate that back seamlessly
(07:04):
without having to radio in.
Putting cameras on a vehicle,for example, to help automate
the detection of overfilledcontainers or contamination
that's coming into a collectionroute.
Putting sensors or, you know,other connected devices into the
collection containers so thatwe can actually get insight into
(07:28):
what's happening in themwithout sending a vehicle.
You know there and those arejust some small examples in the
logistics part of the industriesthat we serve of how we're
connecting these physical assetswhether they're fixed or moving
assets, whether they're fixedor moving assets to a digital
(08:10):
network and then really enablingthe operators of our businesses
to data insights and visibilityto our key operators, who can
make better decisions, deliverservices more efficiently, lower
costs, manage materials in abetter way, communicate to their
customers how to best managetheir you know their materials
that they might be discarding ortrying to recycle.
All that just becomes moreefficient when we take kind of
(08:33):
the manual communication or, youknow, the verbal communication
out of it and let machines dothat work for us.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah, do the heavy lifting if you will.
So I'm curious around thespecifics of how this applies to
circularity.
You've just touched on moreresource efficiency and better
bottom lines.
Are you actually seeing, then,an increase of recycling and
other aspects of circularity aswell?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
an increase of recycling and other aspects of
circularity as well.
One of the things that we'vereally been excited about this
year is engaging in the upstreamdetection of contamination in
recycling routes.
For the longest time, recyclingfacilities had a nearly
impossible task.
Right, they're a manufacturingfacility that has no control
over the materials or the inputsthat are coming into it.
(09:25):
Right, they've got a vehiclethat goes out, collects
materials or recycling fromresidents or businesses and they
come and dump it at therecycling facility and then, you
know, through some magic ormanual picking or robotics,
they're expected to turn it intousable commodities that have
value on the market and can beturned into new materials.
(09:47):
That resulted in a lot ofcontamination, a lot of wasted
materials, a lot of logisticsthat were unnecessary to have to
remove material that shouldn'thave ended up at the recycling
facility in the first place, alot of safety risks for
dangerous materials that couldstart fires or injure employees
or cause equipment downtime andmake the facilities less
(10:11):
efficient.
And so what we found is actuallybeing able to measure at the
point of collection if thematerial is going to be
consistent with what therecycling facility can actually
handle, and being able to dothat upstream, at the collection
(10:31):
route and being able to feedthat information when there is
contamination back to the peoplethat are generating it can
impact behavior.
But the quality of the materialand the efficiency of the
recycling facilities hasincreased so much, when you
engage upstream and at the pointof generation, that our
operators are really excited andit solves problems that they
(10:53):
couldn't solve otherwise insidetheir facilities.
They had to go out into thecommunities and engage with
their customers and the peoplethat are throwing these
materials away and it helps witheducation, it helps lower costs
and ultimately it helps recyclemore material and bring it into
the circular supply chain tocome back as new consumer goods.
(11:15):
And so we do see a huge impactfrom that type of automation
that otherwise wouldn't havebeen possible automation that
otherwise wouldn't have beenpossible.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
That's neat it reminds me of in Edmonton we
have installed a machine thatuses x-ray and AI and machine
learning to help identifybatteries within products,
because for us, we're e-wasterecyclers in that location, and
so it's helping to identify thehazards before they go through
the shredder and thereforedecrease the instances of fires
(11:49):
and, ultimately, safety issues.
So many people say show me thedata, like what this actually
means quantified.
Are you able to speak to anyquantifiable numbers in terms of
this impact of these tools onefficiency and safety and all
that?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I'll give some examples.
Just around what it's a productthat we call Vision AI, and this
is using cameras on collectionvehicles to automate the
detection of overages orcontamination through a
collection route.
What we found is, when we focuson trying to determine where
(12:31):
containers are over full at thepoint of collection, that when
we automate that, the detectionrate goes up 100% versus manual
detection.
So, relying on a driver to markand report back when there's an
overfilled container, when weautomate that with a video feed
(12:53):
and with AI, we've seen nearly adoubling of the capture of that
information.
You know, one of the thingsthat is really important for our
customers specifically is allthe additional costs that are
associated with overfill.
So when we have captured moreoverfill rates, they're actually
able to generate more revenueand save more money, and so even
(13:17):
a 10% overfill rate captureincrease can result in upwards
of $5,000 a month for a singlecollection route.
So for our large operators,it's very significant in making
sure that they're providing theright service and that they're
communicating back to theircustomers.
What's happening upwards of 30%to 40% reduction in
(13:41):
contamination across acollection route, which means
30% to 40% less incompatiblematerial for a recycling
facility is actually showing upat that recycling facility and
being put in the right place togo to the right disposal
(14:05):
facility the first time withouthaving to double touch it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, those are huge numbers all around and I want to
get into how we actuallyimplement these things.
But I'm curious.
This makes so much sense, right?
You talk about these numbers oflike 30%, 100% gains.
How much are you seeingcompanies actually embrace this
(14:33):
and embrace the possibility ofthis?
Are we early on the journey asa whole, or are we later stage?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, I think we do find ourselves still fairly
early in the journey, and a lotof it has to do with um
companies going through theirown digital transformation uh
activities.
Um, you know there are so manyopportunities out there, uh, for
engagement into new technologyum, that we're actually seeing,
(15:04):
you know, kind of a stressed ITinfrastructure inside of
companies that have too muchdemand.
Right, there's too much, thereare too many improvement
opportunities there.
So what we try to help ourclients go through is a
prioritization exercise andidentify what are the most
impactful activities that youcould engage in from a
(15:27):
technology perspective, whatwould have the best impact on
your customers, on youremployees, on your company as a
whole, the impacts that youwould look to have in the
communities you service and goout and do the research of the
best way to implement those Forour customers.
We're finding that these typesof automations across manual
(15:51):
processes that can be stood upas standalone offerings or
integrated into a wider ITinfrastructure is representing
some low hanging fruit that justmakes sense to get involved in
straight away right now and itdoesn't take a huge lift to
integrate into their operations.
(16:13):
And so these types of decisionswe're seeing becoming easier,
but we are certainly still earlyin the journey and would look
to see the opportunitiescontinue to grow as more
companies adopt these types ofsolutions.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
So what you recommend is basically sitting down,
doing a prioritization exerciseand then identifying the
low-hanging fruit.
I saw a checklist in one ofyour documents in terms of
different things to do aroundinventory management forecasting
, material quality assessments,machine learning, imaging tools,
(16:52):
material valuation with dynamicpricing agility to make
adjustments following qualitycontrol assessments.
Is this a checklist of some ofthe possibilities that a company
could really implement?
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, and we see it again.
It's showing how dynamic theindustry, that the industries
that we service are, and thevast opportunities that they
have to improve their businessoperations.
One of the ways that we'veencouraged to look through this
right you've got youroperational KPIs, you probably
have your financial KPIs.
(17:28):
You've got your operationalKPIs, you probably have your
financial KPIs.
We like looking at this througha sustainability measurement as
well.
Where you have the mostgreenhouse gas emissions or
where you have your scope onescope, two emissions the
heaviest to apply automation andtechnology to help impact that.
(17:52):
And one thing that weabsolutely know is that when you
reduce your greenhouse gasemissions or your carbon impact
resulting from your operations,you lower costs and you're able
to provide more competitiveservices to your customers and
you're able to identify newgrowth opportunities quicker.
And so we really like havingthat sustainability measurement
(18:17):
to complement operational andfinancial measurement as a way
to really help with thatprioritization exercise.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I love that, jeff and you are speaking my language.
We think about all those thingstoo.
At Quantum and, in reality, asupplier to a company.
Their emissions are theircustomers' scope three emissions
.
So the more that you can reduceyour own emissions as a company
, it's actually good for yourcustomers and who you serve,
(18:45):
because they may be using yourdata, or will be using your data
to calculate their scope threeemissions.
So I think that's really smartthat you think about it from a
sustainability lens.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So for our customers as well.
Right so for, like a waste andrecycling operator who's looking
to measure their greenhouse gasemissions, one of the most
challenging things for them isactually scope three, right.
So when your part of yourrecycling operation, for example
, relies on subcontractors orsuppliers, that makes your
(19:18):
sustainability measurement thatmuch more difficult.
So what we're actually seeingis a trend of vertical
integration and recyclersgetting more involved in a wider
part of the supply chain andcontrolling the path for
materials that they're managingto actually get back into the
supply chain.
So, whether that's companiesthat are investing in plastic
(19:41):
polymer plants, companies thatare investing from an organics
management perspectivemanagement perspective getting
more into packaging, mulch orcompost and bringing it directly
to market themselves to reducethe reliance on suppliers but
also control more of theoperations and increases
(20:06):
competitive advantage, and itmakes their measurement and
optimization activities muchmore streamlined and simple to
implement.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well, the new Basel changes that made me think of
that that it's really makingcompanies rethink how they do
business, particularly aroundplastics recycling.
I'm wondering how much doregulations actually change the
space and change the adoption ofsome of these tools to increase
their efficiency andsustainability?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, well, we certainly see regulation as
having an influence.
The challenge with regulationis that enforcement doesn't
always follow quickly whenregulations or legislation comes
in, certainly for the majorityof the materials that we find in
the non-hazardous solid wasteside of the business.
(21:01):
And so, while that might be aninfluencer of longer term
decisions, the short termdecisions we see influenced by
competitive advantage and growthaspirations and so, but there's
there's an overlap, right?
So things that our regulationsare looking to direct the
(21:22):
industry to do as best practicethat would be best for the
environment and for thecommunities that we service are
also good for business.
And so we see businesses takingit upon themselves to implement
these improvements simplybecause they can increase
margins and grow into newmarkets and gain new customers
(21:43):
or increase competitiveadvantages against, you know,
new entrants into markets thatthey serve.
So we do see the regulationscoming, but we see businesses
making these decisions fasterbecause they're good for their
bottom line.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
They're good for business and, to what you said
early on in our conversation, Ibelieve it too.
It's possible to be asustainable business and a good
business.
So they're not trade-offs, jeff.
We've been speaking aboutcompanies that are adopting this
sort of early on in theirjourney, but what about
companies that are further alongin implementing this?
(22:26):
Can you give us some examplesof what are they working on,
what are they adopting and thekind of results that they're
seeing?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, so what we see with customers that have gone
past the initial adoption of AIand automation is actually
spreading that across morebusiness functions.
So, for example, bringing thoseinsights that we're talking
(22:54):
about from a collection vehicleabout what's happening on a
route and actually planning moreof their downstream operations
based on that data.
Based on that data, so they'restandardizing and automating you
know further across thelifecycle of their operation and
(23:19):
scaling the impacts as a result.
So, if you can think thatyou've got logistics operations
that would feed into aprocessing or manufacturing
style operation, and then thathas to go into packaging and
marketing to sell to an endmarket and everybody needs to be
(23:41):
invoiced or paid or, you know,balances transferred between
company entities all along thatjourney, our customers that are
now very mature have layeredautomation across all of that.
It's resulting in reduced backoffice burden, right?
(24:03):
So they're holding lessoverhead, meaning they're
putting more investment intotheir operations rather than
into their administration, andthey're making more informed
strategic decisions and they'regrowing faster.
So they're making acquisitiondecisions faster.
They're making those verticalintegration decisions faster and
growing into new operationsthat can reduce their reliance
(24:27):
on suppliers, to new operationsthat can reduce their reliance
on suppliers those types ofthings simply happen faster and
more confidently when theautomation exists across the
operation.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So it essentially enables them to scale faster and
, frankly, we're talking aboutall the circular elements to
this.
In a sense, scale circularityas well.
Exactly, jeff.
Let's move into our how-tosection, where I ask you some
how-to questions and you cananswer them as short or as long
as you like.
The first one is on thefinancial side of this.
(25:02):
So certainly there's a cost I'msure there's an upfront cost to
implementing these tools,perhaps an ongoing cost as well
how to quantify the paybackperiod to invest in automation
and these types of tools overall?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, return on investment is an absolutely
critical part of getting off theground.
We recommend getting closelyaligned with your vendors and
partners to help with thatanalysis.
So one of the things that we dowith all of our clients is we
sit down and go through thisreturn on investment exercise
(25:41):
Not only what are the key painpoints or points of efficiency
and optimization thatdigitization effort can provide,
but what's the operationalstructure or the organizational
structure or the IT structurethat our customers need to have
to support it and maintain itright and make sure that it's
kept up to date and they can getthrough organizational change
(26:04):
management and adoption right,make sure that it sticks and
actually delivers the value thatthey expect.
And so interacting with expertsand vendors can help you get
through that.
And every digital engagementhas its own calculation, and so
(26:25):
you really need to treat it assuch, know what you're trying to
achieve, know the value you'reaiming to deliver, and then
understand the resources thatit's going to take to get that
done, and that should lead youto a very confident decision on
the return that you can expectfrom that investment.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Okay, awesome.
Now you mentioned differentdepartments, different players
within an organization.
How to decide who should beresponsible for this area,
especially when a lot of theseprojects touch operations and
sustainability and IT.
Who should manage this?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Any technology effort should be bolstered by a solid
IT backbone, but we like toreally think about the impact on
the customer.
So, for the companies that wework with, who are you trying to
provide services to?
What value are you going toprovide to them?
(27:23):
How does this ultimately landat the folks that pay your
checks?
And that helps us stay focusedon the things that matter to
their business, and the thingsbecause it's always the things
that matter to their customersthat are the most important.
So you always need an ITinfrastructure.
But then we go straight to whatmatters to your customer and
(27:44):
how can you grow your businessbest with that in mind, and
that's usually a really goodrecipe for success.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
And how you structure your team.
Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
Last one we talk a lot on thispodcast about not only the
initiatives or ideas that youcan implement, but also a
reality for a lot oforganizations is getting buy-in
from senior leaders to actuallymove ahead and implement these
(28:12):
things.
So, from your view in thisspace, how to get buy-in from
your senior leaders, anyrecommendations that way?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, alignment with strategic goals that would be
meaningful to a seniorleadership sponsor for a
particular project is key.
So, whether you are looking toincrease revenue or increase
sorry, so whether you're lookingto increase revenue, grow into
(28:44):
new markets, reduce costs andincrease margins, or you have a
more sustainably minded goal ofrecycling more material,
increasing the impact you mighthave environmentally on the
communities that you service,whatever that might be, finding
what's important at thestrategic level that already has
(29:07):
a senior leadership sponsor andproviding value directly to
achieving that strategic goal isthe best way to get that senior
leadership buy-in.
And it's critical You've got tohave it.
You can't skip that step.
Otherwise it's really hard tochange organizations and change
(29:28):
people and change processwithout that type of leadership
buy-in.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Well, that's true, and even if you get the initial
yes, without that true buy-infrom those senior leaders, the
sustainability of the long-termimplementation may be in
question.
I would imagine.
So great advice, Jeff.
We have covered so much heretoday and given so much to our
listeners to think about.
(29:56):
It's been great.
What would you say would be onefinal piece of advice you would
leave them with regarding thiswhole area of automation and all
these digital tools that theycan use to transform their
business?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, I love to advise people to stay curious.
There's so much changing in thecomposition of the materials
that are all around us.
There's so much changing intechnology.
There's so much changing in thecompetitive landscape of how we
all run our businesses thatremaining curious and remaining
(30:33):
educated and seeking out newopportunities to do things
differently is always the bestpractice.
Plus, it makes working fun, Ifind.
So that's always my firstadvice Remain curious.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I love that One of our core values at Quantum is
relentless curiosity.
So for sure, and you know, wecan really build a better
mousetrap, as we say, if youstay curious and keep up as the
world evolves.
Jeff, thank you so much.
This has been really insightfulfor me and, I'm sure, for our
listeners, so we reallyappreciate having you here.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Thank you for the opportunity and love listening
to the podcast and all of yourguests, so please continue on.
It's been a great opportunityfor me.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Thanks and remember, if you have old or redundant
electronics for reuse orrecycling, we'd love to chat
Head on over toquantumlifecyclecom and contact
us.
This is a Quantum Lifecyclepodcast and the producer is
Sanjay Trivedi.
Thank you for being a CircularFuture Champion in your company
and beyond.
(31:40):
Logging off.
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