I spent last week (February 2–6) in
Las Vegas at the 2009 World of Concrete, an event many feared was going to be
something of a wake rather than an exposition. While attendance was down—30%
below last year’s record-setting 84,000 seems a reasonable guess—the prevailing
sentiment appeared to be, “OK, these are tough times, so what do we do about
it?”The “what” most attendees had in mind
was to become more efficient, beginning with getting a firm fix on their
business practices today and what they need to do to improve them in the future.
Those who had good tracking systems
already in place had a leg up on those whose success was more a function of
excess work than refined practices. While the former headed toward such
productivity enhancement technologies as machine control and telematics systems,
the latter concentrated first on software systems to generate a valid picture of
where they stood businesswise.
The “what,” as I saw it, was how far
the software and productivity tools have come in just the last year, not to
mention the tremendous advantage those with them in place will have over their
competitors who lack them.
For private haulers wishing to
compete for municipal business, the need for top-notch software and tracking
systems should be obvious. But is it different for public-sector entities as
well? I don’t think so.
Faced with the grim prospects of
shrinking tax receipts and reduced waste revenues framed against a backdrop of
high, fixed waste management costs and overarching demands by other departments
for welfare and crime-fighting funds, waste managers are going to have to sweep
up the scraps from under the table to meet even the most basic public health and
safety mandates with which they are charged.