The Scottish waste management and recycling company, Levenseat Renewable Energy, now has real-time access to material inventory figures and, as a result, efficiently manages its logistics and processing operations after implementing a Lidar-based solution for waste inventory tracking.
From an article in Recycling Magazine.
Levenseat, a Scottish resource management company operating since 1985, faced a challenge: one of their waste treatment and energy generation facilities for municipal waste covers nearly 3,000 square meters, and the materials delivered for sorting are constantly in motion. As a result, the previously employed methods, primarily visual estimation upon delivery and counting of incoming trucks, were inadequate for accurately determining inventory levels. This led to adverse effects in various areas.
Low Efficiency and Heightened Safety Concerns
The lack of inventory information resulted in inefficient processes and made operations vulnerable to disruptions. For example, when material accumulated too much in the storage facility due to process delays, such as outages, safety risks increased. The larger volume of waste heightened the risk of fires, pushed storage capacity to its limits, and necessitated the diversion of trucks to other locations, negatively impacting logistical efficiency.
Conversely, at times, underutilization of storage space resulted in missed opportunities. Available processing resources were not fully utilized, leading to lower production levels than could have been achieved, ultimately reflected in the numbers. Therefore, a more accurate technology for inventory tracking needed to be identified and implemented.
Inventory Tracking with Lidar
The choice was made for a Volume Monitoring solution from the Munich-based Lidar manufacturer Blickfeld, installed by Quvo, Blickfeld’s exclusive partner for the waste and recycling industry in the UK and Northern Ireland. The Blickfeld solution is based on Lidar technology (“Light Detection and Ranging”) and provides real-time material data. This works by Lidar sensors emitting several hundred thousand laser pulses per second across a large field of view, systematically scanning the surroundings. From this, 3D surface images are created, and a perception software accurately calculates the volume.
For the complete article on waste inventory tracking CLICK HERE.
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