Streamlining Waste Collection: A Success Story with NextBillion.ai Route Optimization Solutions

About SIR

SIR is a leading environmental solutions provider with over 20 years of expertise in waste management and wastewater treatment. Operating in Mexico City and its surrounding areas, SIR is committed to sustainability and aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Their intelligent waste management solutions focus on reducing environmental impact while maximizing operational efficiency.

The Problem

SIR encountered critical challenges in their logistical operations due to the lack of dedicated routes for trucks in their navigation system. This led to various issues that impacted efficiency, safety, and costs:

Unsuitable Routing: The existing navigation system did not account for truck-specific needs, leading to the fleet frequently using roads that were not ideal for heavy vehicles. This resulted in increased risks, delays, and potential regulatory issues.

Suboptimal Route Planning: The fleet often had to revisit locations or manage multiple stops inefficiently, which wasted time and resources.

Rising Operational Costs: Inconsistent scheduling, combined with inefficient route planning, led to higher operational costs and reduced overall productivity.

The Solution

SIR partnered with NextBillion.ai to optimize their logistics operations by obtaining efficient, truck-specific routes tailored to their fleet’s needs. This collaboration aims to enhance the navigation system to accommodate the size and weight of their trucks, ensuring smoother and safer routes. In addition to improving route efficiency, the partnership also focuses on maintaining productivity across their fleet, allowing SIR to achieve better logistical performance while keeping operations streamlined and compliant with relevant regulations.

When they contacted the NextBillion.ai team, they had a pressing issue: generating routes that accommodate their heavy truck fleet. They integrate the Route Optimization APIs, Direction APIs, Geofencing, Clustering APIs and a light tracking API  to their existing navigation system and maps. The APIs played a key role in offering the desired solutions and helped them to achieve the key objectives such as:

1. Route plan for Trucks: This solution effectively addresses the challenge of creating specific route plans for waste management collection trucks. The route optimization API helped generate customized routes to accommodate all road restrictions and conditions, ensuring the trucks could navigate efficiently and safely.
   
2. Enhanced Safety of fleet: The navigation API enables them to provide turn-by-turn directions to the fleet, including all speed limits and local speed regulations for each specific route. This helps control truck movement, ensures compliance, and enhances road safety.
3. Optimized Driver and Vehicle Pairing: The solution precisely paired drivers with suitable vehicles in their diverse fleets based on the driver skill metrics and skills required to complete certain tasks. User-defined constraints, such as specific skills, were integrated into the pairing process, optimizing overall resource allocation.
   
4. Better Resource Allocation: By using the Clustering API, they were able to group tasks based on geo-locations, which automatically enhanced the overall efficiency of their logistics operations. This allowed the most suitable fleet ( nearby location) to handle the tasks, optimizing resource allocation and improving operational performance.

The Outcome

The integration of NextBillion.ai’s route optimization APIs transformed the waste management company’s operations. It enhanced efficiency by reducing delivery times and fuel consumption, enabled precise vehicle-driver pairing, and streamlined logistics with customized truck routes, ensuring SLA compliance. Overall, the APIs optimized route plans, leading to more efficient and productive operations.