Kainuu Joint Municipal Authority for Waste Management, Ekokymppi, is responsible for waste management services and official duties of the municipalities of Kainuu and the municipality of Vaala. Ekokymppi takes care of the waste management for both residential and holiday properties in an area of approximately 76,000 inhabitants, the development of waste management and advising. Ekokymppi identified development needs in improving the efficiency of various aspects of waste flow management, and solving the needs started together with Pinja in the fall of 2020.
The automation of various areas of the material flow management, such as reporting, was a key goal in the digitization project. Automated reporting ensures more accurate and faster results. By automating operations, it is also possible to reduce the risk of human error and the unnecessary manual work associated with them. Ekokymppi also names the introduction of mobile weighing as one of the essential sub-goals of the project. It will facilitate the work of scale operators and make the reception of nightly loads, which previously involved a lot of manual work, more fluent.
“An essential criterion in selecting the supplier of the system was the “one-stop shop principle” – the fact that all the necessary parts of the system could be obtained from the same supplier. Pinja offered such a solution.” says Marjut Kinnunen, customer service manager of Ekokymppi.
Flow by Pinja were selected because the system met all the content requirements that had been set for the system to be implemented. All aspects in the solution implemented from weighing and inbound functions to load data reporting, inventory management and electronic transfer document management are services provided by Pinja, which reduces, for example, challenges related to interfaces. In addition, the Flow system will be integrated into the Vingo billing system used by Ekokymppi. As the project progressed, development-friendliness was considered a factor that promoted the selection of Pinja:
“The client’s goals and requirements have been listened to and understood. Solutions to the questions and challenges that arose during the implementation phase of the system were also actively sought within the system” says Kinnunen.
“In Pinja’s favour, when we selected the supplier, previous experience in the field of circular economy was also considered” Kinnunen continues.
The system will be introduced in phases during this year. Pinja’s electronic transfer document system will be the first thing to be included in internal testing. Once this service is in use, the gradual deployment of the scale integration will begin. This is followed by a move to mobile weighing, storage management and the implementation of billing integrations. Gradual deployment ensures that each functionality is deployed one after the other, and the training phase of using the new application can be scheduled before the summer, which is the busiest time in the circular economy.
Read more:
Flow by Pinja – a system for improving the efficiency of material flows in circular economy business
Guide: 6 tips for streamlining inbound and outbound operations
Blog: 4+1 most important things to consider in managing material flows in circular economies
