Systems and methods for material management
A system and method are provided for scheduling the emptying or replacement of a waste container based on the fullness of the container or the usage of the container. These factors may be considered to determine when the waste container will become completely full. Additionally, the system and method may consider the customer preferences or the limitations of the waste hauler. All of these factors may be considered to determine an optimal time for the waste container to be emptied or replaced. These factors are also considered to determine when to accomplish the scheduling (i.e. when to notify the waste hauler that the waste container should be emptied or replaced at a given time).
1. A material management system including: one or more waste containers adapted to receive and compact waste; a fullness-measuring subsystem for determining the fullness of one or more waste containers; a computerized scheduling subsystem in communication with the fullness-measuring subsystem for automatically determining an optimal time to empty each waste container, based one or more scheduling factors including the fullnesses of the waste container and scheduling factors related to predicted future usage, where the predicted future usage is based on statistical analysis, performed by the computerized scheduling sub-system, of customer usage patterns including prior recorded fullnesses, and where the statistical analysis, performed by the computerized scheduling sub-system, of customer usage patterns includes linear regression.
2. The material management system of claim 1 , where the scheduling factors related to the predicting future usage include customer preferences and waste hauler limitations.
3. The material management system of claim 1 , including a communication subsystem in communication with the computerized scheduling subsystem for notifying the waste hauler when to remove the waste container.
4. The material management system of claim 1 , where the computerized scheduling system is subject to user-intervention.
5. The material management system of claim 1 , where the computerized scheduling subsystem, for each waste container: causes the fullness-measuring subsystem to determine again the fullness of the waste container and the optimal pickup time, a lead time before scheduling the waste container removal; and if the optimal removal time has changed, determining again when to accomplish the scheduling of the waste container removal.
6. The material management system of claim 1 , where the computerized scheduling subsystem, for each waste container: determines when to accomplish the scheduling of the waste container removal, based on the optimal time and one or more waste hauler limitations.
7. The material management system of claim 2 , where the optimal time is the latest time that satisfies customer preferences and waste hauler limitations.
8. The material management system of claim 2 , where the customer preferences considered by the computerized scheduling sub-system include one or more preferences selected from the group consisting of: a preference that the customer's waste container only reach a certain level of fullness; a preference that the customer's waste container not be emptied on certain days of the week; and a preference that the customer's waste container not be emptied during certain hours of the day.
9. The material management system of claim 2 , where the waste hauler limitations considered by the computerized scheduling sub-system include one or more limitations selected from the group consisting of: a number of drivers available at a specified time; a number of trucks available at a specified time; a distance from the waste hauler to the customer's waste container; a distance from the customer's waste container to the material receiving site; operating hours of the waste hauler's dispatcher/routing office; and operating hours of a company that schedules hauls with the waste hauler.
10. The material management system of claim 4 , where the user-intervention includes a user determining when to schedule the removal of a waste container.
11. The material management system of claim 7 , where, if no time satisfies customer preferences and waste hauler limitations, the computerized scheduling system will choose an optimal time that satisfies one or more customer preferences.
12. The material management system of claim 7 , where, if no time satisfies customer preferences and waste hauler limitations, the computerized scheduling system will choose an optimal time that satisfies one or more waste hauler limitations.
13. A computerized method for scheduling a pick up time to remove of one or more waste containers, including, for each waste container:
automatically determining a fullness of the waste container;
automatically determining when a waste container will reach a target level of fullness, based on the current fullness and predicted future usage, where the predicted future usage is based on statistical analysis of customer usage patterns including prior recorded fullnesses, and where the statistical analysis of customer usage patterns includes linear regression;
automatically determining an optimal time to remove the waste container, based on when the waste container will reach a target level of fullness, customer preferences, and waste hauler limitations; and
automatically scheduling the removal of the waste container for the optimal time.
14. The method of claim 13 , where the target level of fullness is some percentage of fullness.
15. The method of claim 13 , including, for each waste container:
automatically determining when to accomplish the scheduling of the waste container removal, based on the optimal time and one or more waste hauler limitations.
16. The method of claim 14 , where the percentage of fullness is about 100%.
17. The method of claim 15 , where automatically determining when to accomplish the scheduling includes: determining the latest time to accomplish the scheduling.
18. A non-transitory computer storage medium containing computer instructions stored therein for causing a computer processor to perform, for use in scheduling a pick up time to remove one or more waste containers, the computer instructions causing the computer processor to, for each waste container:
determine a fullness of the waste container;
determine when the waste container will reach a target level of fullness, based on the current fullness and predicted future usage, where the predicted future usage is based on statistical analysis of customer usage patterns including prior recorded fullnesses, and where the statistical analysis of customer usage patterns includes linear regression;
determine an optimal time to remove the waste container, based on the predicted full time, customer preferences, and waste hauler limitations; and
schedule the removal of the waste container for the optimal time.