News Archive

Digital return solution for cable drums operational

9 March 2020

RS Trommelservice have operations in a branch unknown to many, but which make a good environmental contribution to recycling or controlled disposal of cable drums. Triona has developed a solution which digitizes the process from order registration through implementation and financial settlement. The service was launched on 1st January 2020 and as a result manual work and paperwork are already history.

Trommelservice offers a return system for cable drums where they are repaired and sold on or disposed of if they are in a poor condition. Customers get money for re-saleable drums and pay a disposal charge for those drums which must be destroyed.

Before digitalization everything was handled manually. This required effort from customers and transportation was expensive. Many had problems specifying the correct drum type, which to some extent affected the value. In some cases they could end up paying more in freight costs than they got back. In others, the result was unhappy customers and drums which were not returned. In addition the manual registration was time-consuming for Trommelservice.

By using the digital return system Trommelservice can now offer their customers a completely different service. Customers can use their telephones to register the correct drum type, because the drums are now marked with a bar code. As soon as the customer wishes the order for the return of the drum will be available for registered transport companies on a digital map-based transport marketplace. Here transport companies can offer prices based on load volume, pick-up address, and distance to the chosen delivery address. Customers can then see the expected return value and calculated freight costs in context even before the drums are returned, which gives customers a predictable profit.

When the customer accepts the offer the transport company is notified and the assignment is sent to the driver. When the drums reach the recycling center the bar code is read on all cable drums. The service identifies the number and type of cable drum and links them to the order. Integration with the financial system completes the now paperless process.

The new solution gives customers an easier and more efficient way to return drums, which hopefully will result in even more cable drums being returned.