Face it, waste happens. Every supply chain must deal with it. That’s why there are waste management companies and solutions, though they have been hampered by inadequate information flow, which leads to another form of waste – that of time and energy. Now, IoT is enabling smarter solutions, and rapid-application development (RAD) platforms make it faster and easier to implement effective waste management.
UK-based ISB Global, a Value Added Reseller (VAR) of SAP software solutions, is also a Software Solutions & Technology Partner (SSTP) for Waste & Recycling One. That software solution, based on SAP Business One ERP platform, creates smart waste management application based on analytics and mobility.
Below is the video in which ISB describes how its smart bins systems increase efficiency, lowers logistical costs, and reduces carbon emissions as a result. It also automates the process of identifying the best route for the day’s waste collection needs and the generation of bills based on real time data on the work done.
The sensors pick up on how full the bins are to put in the information that optimizes the pick-up time to when they are full but not yet overflowing. Bluetooth Beacons provide location trackers that can ascertain that they are located where they should be to avoid any confusion or delay for pickup.
Writing the code to enable the system would take months. But ISB Global got it set up in just weeks by using the OutSystems platform.
In a phone interview, Dan Juengst, principal technology evangelist at OutSystems, one of the major players in the (RAD) space, sometimes also referred to as “low-code” or “no-code,” said that eliminating traditional coding is the key to acceleration. The platform “makes it very easy for organizations to build applications by creating a visual model. With that model, the platform automatically writes the code for the application,” he said.
Indeed, rapid results are the specialty of the company, as confirmed by this year’s Garner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise High-Productivity Application Platform as a Service’s assessment of the company. It identified “accelerating the ‘time to solution’ of enterprise apps” as one of OutSystems’ outstanding attributes. Gartner also identified OutSystems as “one of the better-known and more-established providers in the market today.” It works with over 180 partners and has customers around the globe.
The platform makes it possible to develop applications in what Gartner described as “an extensible, no-code visual integrated development environment (IDE; known as Service Studio) and deployed on-premises, or in a private or public cloud (AWS or Azure), using a DevOps tool (LifeTime).” They can be used over the web and on mobile devices, as demonstrated in the ISB Global video above.
Juengst explained that “intelligent algorithms are built into the software.” That means that they not only “leverage IoT data” but also have the ability “to talk to AI and machine learning libraries in the cloud.”
By connecting with those, ISB Global is able to optimize routes for the trucks based on real time data. There’s no need for manual data uploads and transfers; it all happens automatically with the systems connecting through the cloud and then making the data available on mobile devices.
Getting that kind of actionable direction based on real time data is essential to improving efficiency on the move. It’s no surprise then that OutSystems has a number of clients who have used its platform for transportations and logistical applications.
Juengst stressed that RAD is helpful to IT department in any type of enterprise because it enables businesses to build and develop applications that “really drive the business forward,” not just much more quickly but with less of a drain on IT resources and the possibility of connecting to legacy systems and drawing on the value of the data stored there. That’s why RAD is currently getting attention like the Gartner report. It’s “definitely a growing space,” the analyst said.
Source: EBN
