Smart Waste Management with IoT

ace 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.

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IoT Enables Smarter Waste Management

NFC taps IoT's potential for marketing

Once upon a time, retail stores tried to get our attention with special displays, signs and stickers, but now they can tap into the power of IoT to communicate a lot more than just “New!” or “Special!” The smartphones we carry can convey marketing messages built into the displays or even the product themselves with just a tap.

Thin Film Electronics ASA is a global leader in NFC (near field communication). It creates printed tags, labels, and systems that incorporate memory, sensors, and wireless communication to enable one-to-one digital marketing through just a tap of a smartphone.

Together with GlaxoSmithKline, it deploys Thinfilm's SpeedTap™ tags in interactive “smart” shelves featuring Flonase®  in stores in six Canadian provinces. Customers who tap their NFC-enabled smartphones to the shelves can get information about the product at the moment of decision.

Matt Bright, Senior Director of Product and Technical Marketing, Thinfilm, spoke with us about why the “smart” shelves are just the tip of the iceberg in IoT marketing. We're not only talking about delivering marketing messages, but being able to customize and adapt to them and pick up the trail of the customer journey even beyond the buying decision.

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Tying the Physical and Digital in NFC

Billboards are getting smarter

Ariella Brown, Freelance Contributor

January 26, 2017

The Future of Smart Billboards

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Want to get a smoker's attention? Try a smart billboard that coughs. That's what a responsive billboard designed to promote smoking-cessation products from a Swedish pharmacy did.  As the video of the billboard in actions shows, it looks like a static picture of a man until a smoker gets close enough to trigger the digital screen to shift to showing the same man coughing. That's followed by a picture of the promoted products.Picture a billboard, and likely you think of a static picture with a slogan or some other words on it, or maybe a sort of revolving picture in a more dynamic version. That's old school billboards. Today's technology allows billboards to pick up on essential cues that enable them to tailor responses to the people in front of them. These are smart billboards equipped with responsive  abilities. And there are more developments ahead.

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The Future of Smart Billboards

Smartphones are key for hotel rollout

In the future, hotel keys may be regarded as quaint, as guests will open doors with their own smartphones.

On August 11, Hilton Worldwide added a new feature to its Hilton HHonors app, the Digital Key. The hotel anticipates rolling it out to 250 Hilton properties in 2016, a brand that includes Waldorf Astoria, Contrad, and Canopy. The hotel chain had already offered digital check-in, but this allows guests to use their phones not only to reserve and register their rooms but to open them, eliminating the need to stop at the front desk altogether.

Credit: Flickr

Hilton is not the first chain to enable guests to use their smartphones as their room keys. The option has been offered at select locations of hotels chains, like Starwood. It’s a growing trend, according to Robert Cole, founder and CEO of RockCheetah, a hotel and destination marketing strategy and travel technology consulting practice. Cole anticipates a lot more hotels will adopt keyless entry options in the next few years. I spoke to him about the benefits that keyless systems offer the hotel industry.

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Smartphones Open Doors, Literally