Undoubtedly, the major trend across the waste management industry involves digitization. Specifically, cloud-based. Not only are there the usual 21st-century competitive pressures to streamline businesses via comprehensive software solutions. But privacy and security concerns necessitate a single point of control for managing the data demanded by the EPA and other environmental authorities. This blog entry looks at how the cloud-based trend affects you and your company. Topics include:
- Cloud-based platforms, cloud-based software, and cloud-based APIs. What is the difference?
- How does business scalability play a role?
- Why comprehensive software is crucial in the hazardous waste management industry.
- Advantages of using cloud-based software.
- Cloud-based software solution vs. on-premises hardware, a simple cost comparison.
- Improved data integrity using a cloud-based solution.
- The accommodation of predictive analytics with a cloud-based platforms.
- How a cloud-based platform accommodates scalability.
- Addressing security measures. Are cloud-based platforms secure?
- The PegEx Platform can help, and we can show you how.
1. Cloud-based platforms, cloud-based software, and cloud-based APIs? What is the difference?
You are likely already very familiar with cloud-based platforms. Some everyday examples include rideshare and mobile payment apps. And if you control some of your household appliances from far away on your cellphone—a cloud-based platform is probably making that possible.
Simply put, a cloud-based platform is made up of applications(software) that communicate and transfer information to one another in the cloud to accomplish a task. Cloud-based platforms typically have software deployed to several places, making it all possible.
Cloud-based software and cloud-based platform. While the terms are very similar and are often used interchangeably, a cloud-based platform typically comprises many deployments of cloud-based software. Cloud-based APIs are used to connect the many deployments of software.
Used in conjunction, they make a very powerful cloud-based solution!
2. How does business scalability play a role?
A business must be scalable for it to grow. This means that every facet of the business must be able to expand and handle an increased amount of work to meet increased demands.
As an example, if a company’s production and sales departments are each state-of-the art, the benefit would be negated if its shipping & receiving arm is antiquated. The entire company can only perform to the level of its weakest link. In this case: shipping & receiving.
In sum, this company is not scalable.
The example is easy to understand because shipping & receiving is a concrete task. In other words, one can observe a shipping & receiving department in operation and measure its efficiency in terms of inputs and outputs across time. But data management is something entirely different. Akin to accounting/finance, the way data management impacts production, sales, record-keeping, and other business processes is not so overt.
But the effect upon the entire company is just as potent.
In the case of waste-handling businesses, antiquated data management systems are not only detrimental to production and sales. They add operational friction within, between, and among all departments. They also make it difficult for hazmat handlers and managers to identify, label, track, and ultimately report waste, which can lead to expensive (or even criminal) errors of omission.
3. Why comprehensive software is crucial in the hazardous waste management industry.
The evolution of data administration in the waste management industry follows a familiar and logical course.
First, paper-and-pencil strategies give way to “desktop” solutions that use such software as MS Access, Excel, and even Word. Scalability is attempted by trying to standardize and streamline the way data are entered into these programs. And/or additional staff might be hired for the chore. But these homegrown solutions are stopgaps at best because the programs they depend upon do not easily interface with other data sources—if at all. Instead, “external” data must be handfed into them. And so, they are chronically out-of-date in real-time.
Next, generic business software is purchased. This is an improvement, but it requires subordinating some processes to the software. For example, hazardous waste management requires a great deal of formfilling and reporting to state, local, and federal authorities, all of which must fit the everchanging letter of the law. Generic software is unlikely to accommodate such an esoteric requirement, so you will need some sort of workaround (e.g., keeping your legacy system for formfilling and reporting).
4. Advantages of using a cloud-based solution.
A platform that is specifically designed for hazardous waste management empowers you to retrieve and share data within and across your organization, effectively solving the intercommunication shortcomings discussed in Q.2 above.
This allows you to automate such processes as tracking, monitoring, and reporting, thereby improving both efficiency and accuracy. Your authorized personnel can access data and applications anywhere 24/7, which can be especially beneficial for waste management companies with offsite and/or mobile employees.
5. Cloud-based solutions vs. on-premises, a simple cost comparison.
Regardless of what kind of software you buy, it will occasionally need upgrades. Either to address CPU evolution (e.g., migrating from 32- to 64-bit platforms) or (more happily) because your business is growing, and the software must become more robust. (See scalability. Q.2)
This is expensive. And execution can be complicated.
Do you hire outside consultants to bolster the software for you? Or do you assign your own employed IT talent to do so, and thereby distract them from whatever it was you hired them to do in the first place?
In the first scenario, there are obvious external costs to be incurred. In the second, less overtly, you will realize decreased productivity from your IT professionals relative to their primary job descriptions. And while that differential might be buried, it is nonetheless a real cost that burdens your internal efforts to upgrade the software.
(You must also consider efficiency: Are your IT professionals’ programmers at heart? Or is it an avocation rather than a specialty?)
Also consider, once you upgrade to cloud-based software that is specifically designed for hazardous waste management, you will considerably reduce expenditures on hardware, software, maintenance, and tech support.
Bottom line: A cloud-based software will generally cost you less.
6. Improved data integrity using a cloud-based solution.
Abundant reporting requirements are a defining feature of hazardous waste management. Thus, there can be many parties entering copious amounts of data to be accessed by lots of different people. Without a comprehensive software solution to centralize such data, errors are the norm, not the exception. E.g., mismatched dates, transporter names, and/or EPA IDs; wrong units of measure; erroneous waste codes; inaccurate container & quantity counts; etc.
Trying to backtrack to ascertain what information you have sent to the EPA over time is not only time-consuming, but it can also garner negative attention from the agency. (Refer to our blog article “How to Prepare for an EPA Audit,” where we discuss surprise audits.)
7. The accommodation of predictive analytics with a cloud-based platform.
A cloud-based platform dedicated to hazardous waste management can provide panoramic insight across all data relative to your workflows. I.e., it can keep you abreast of how much material you are processing, as well as how much waste you are generating across all your sites. Thus, you can see your trends—both upward and downward.
8. How a cloud-based platform accommodates scalability.
Cloud-based platforms allow you to scale up or down easily without buying new hardware or software. In the long term, this is an obvious benefit as your business grows. In the shorter term, it can be particularly beneficial if your business is highly seasonal with predictable sales peaks and troughs.
9. Addressing security measures. Are cloud-based platforms secure?
Cloud-based platforms endemically have sophisticated security measures integrated into their design to keep your data private, as well as protect you from ransomware and other kinds of cyberattacks.
10. The PegEx Platform can help, and we can show you how.
The complexity, evolution, and sheer amount of rules concerning hazmat require a comprehensive software solution to meet the onslaught of compliance challenges emanating from a matrix of rule-making bodies: the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), DOT (Department of Transportation), OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), and FMSCA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) —not to mention state and local bureaucracies.
If you are a hazardous waste CEO, COO, CFO, manager, or supervisor who is charged with making strategic decisions about hazardous waste management, you need to know about the PegEx Platform.
It is an easy-to-use cloud-based platform that allows hazardous-waste generators, transporters, brokers, and consultants to mitigate compliance risk, optimize margins, enhance productivity, ensure accountability, and enable sustainability initiatives. What are you waiting for?
Request a FREE demo
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