The award-winning waste management company optimises operations using GIS technology; looks to draft better policies and reduce waste production in future.
The Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Corporation (SWCorp) attributes last year’s impressive score of 30% in recycling rate to the use of geographic information system (GIS) technology in its operations.
“The total collection of recycled items last May 2021 was recorded at 307.63 tonnes – an 89% increase (163.15 tonnes) from May 2020. Noting this positive trend, SWCorp has set a 40% target by 2025, and we are confident in achieving it,” said SWCorp CEO Ismail Mokhtar.
According to Ismail, this was made possible by digitally transforming SWCorp’s operations starting with the implementation of WEGIS, SWCorp’s GIS platform, in 2019.
WEGIS, which stands for Waste Executive Geographic Information System, is an application designed to enhance SWCorp’s productivity by ways of operations management and monitoring through high levels of data access. While being interactive and user-friendly, WEGIS improves and maintains the functionality of technologies that assist SWCorp in its role as the national hygiene regulator.
He explained that the idea for WEGIS was deemed necessary to improve the monitoring of operations in the areas serviced by SWCorp’s three concessionaires – E-Idaman Sdn Bhd, Alam Flora Sdn Bhd and SWM Environment Sdn Bhd – across seven states.
"While we previously had a process in place to support our operations, it was very time intensive, costly, and prone to errors. We found that the area assigned to our concessionaires were too wide with their current logistical capacity,” Ismail said. “We addressed these business challenges by working closely with Esri Malaysia to integrate data across the organisation, including those from tracking devices installed on the trash collection vehicles, and visualising it on a dynamic mapping platform.”
The result is a one-stop portal that allows our employees to easily access data anytime, anywhere, and more importantly, it provides us with greater awareness on our operations, assets, and concession areas. In addition, WEGIS also reduced the company’s paper usage since it digitised a significant amount of their workflows.
While it has only been two years since the implementation of WEGIS, SWCorp has since then earned numerous industry awards for the transformational work they’ve done. Among their many awards include the Esri Malaysia GeoInnovation Award, which recognises organisations for their innovative use of geospatial technology to address real-world challenges.
To date, SWCorp has revealed plans to further enhance the capabilities of WEGIS to include optimising the company’s iJadual (concession collection schedule) system and work completion reports and an integration with common payment systems to minimise financial losses.