Page 35 from: March 2013
35March 2013
opens the door to a host of problems that
‘threaten your livelihood’, explaining: ‘It’s very
simple to turn a US$ 14 ticket into a US$ 114
ticket. It’s also very easy to “accidentally” mis-
place a decimal point and go from 6.0 lb of
aluminium to 60 lb of aluminium. And then
there’s that employee who’s helping out a friend
of his by placing a little extra weight on the scale
with his foot to bump up the poundage.’
Today, ‘13 lucky years later’, his own-design Recy-
cling Operations Manager (ROM) has turned out
to be a useful tool in proving guilt in several cases
of Employee Dishonesty Insurance Claims. On
three separate occasions, recyclers received a mon-
etary award or were successful in putting employ-
ees who had been stealing from them in jail,
according to Kane. ‘This was possible because
ROM requires each user to unlock workstation
machines with a unique user and password,’ he
continues. ‘And because certified scales and cam-
eras are part of every purchase transaction, it
makes it virtually impossible for an employee to,
say, hand his buddy a ticket for far more than what
he’s actually owed for a box of copper wire.’
In response to the recent upheaval caused by
metal thefts, many US recyclers have
approached 21st Century Programming to
assist them with their compliance needs. ‘State
or local legislature requires them to keep
detailed records of transactions involving cer-
tain commodities,’ Kane explains. ‘Our system
enables them to collect and compile a seller’s
full contact info, DL, address, photo, thumb
print, digital signature and photos of their
material, and report this to the police with the
touch of a single button. Not only has our soft-
ware improved the relationship between recy-
clers and the local metal theft police, the police
stay out of the yards that have ROM installed.’
New challenge
With metal scrap and other recycled materials
generally witnessing a rise in value over recent
years, ‘market fluctuations also grew into a more
notable concern’, remarks Klarmann. ‘While you
might have purchased a ton of copper for only
US$ 4000 ten years back, you need to pay around
US$ 8000 on today’s market. For some com-
modities, price increases have been even steeper.’
If you buy scrap for that kind of money, you need
to know that you are making the right call; after
all, you have to sell it again, notes Klarmann. ‘The
fact is that many scrap yards buy mostly in bulk,
resulting in huge risks,’ he points out. ‘This means
they must be prepared; they must have their risk
covered. They noticed this all too well when the
market dropped in 2008 and copper went down
almost 40% in a very short period. All of a sud-
den, they were very vulnerable, especially the big
yards with a lot left in stock.’
Such steep rises and falls created an altogether
new challenge for recycling software: control
of metal positions and hedging. ‘Today, this is
a requirement for every metal recycler whereas,
once, the London Metal Exchange and COMEX
were the domain of large metal traders and
banks,’ states Recy’s ceo. ‘First, for our large
customers we had to add elements of profes-
sional commodity trading. Today, even smaller
guys use this complex functionality. Naturally,
sound and reliable inventory management is
another key element. This differentiates this
industry from hedge and investment funds.’
Though Klarmann realises that many smaller
players still operate using several different sys-
tems all at once, this can have painful conse-
quences, he believes. ‘Imagine if your financial
module doesn’t talk to your scale system. You
could deliver metals to a consumer which is
almost bankrupt. You could lose millions of
Euros with no hope of getting it back – and all
because there is no integrated control for the guy
at the scale who has no clue that there might be
a problem.’ To prevent this from happening,
RECY provides a ‘credit limit control’ which
closely monitors such sensitive data with the
help of its integrated financial package.
Recyclers get their life back
Apart from a wide variety of interconnected
options, recycling software has come to be char-
acterised by the ease and efficiency it brings to
a site, according to Kane. The president of 21st
Century Programming explains: ‘Let’s say John
pulls in with an entire truckload of mixed steel.
He doesn’t need to drop his container; he just
simply pulls his rig onto the scale, ROM opens
a ticket, weighs and photographs the load, and
then John is off to the mixed steel bin where
yard employees help separate the load and
account for contamination.’
‘Meanwhile, Mack, another trucker, hauling old
washing machines, pulls his load onto the scale
and ROM opens another ticket. Both return
barely 30 minutes later. The great thing is that
they never have to exit their vehicle, there’s
never any line or back-up of trucks waiting to
weigh. Instead, tickets can be opened, saved,
closed and reopened as often as needed until
the transaction is completed.’
‘The best thing, or so we’ve been told, is that
our software has given many recyclers their life
back,’ states Kane, because they no longer have
to slave over writing out and reconciling weigh
slips for, say, 300 customers a day before closing
time. ‘Our clients tell us that they went from
spending two to three hours trying to balance
the books to 10-15 minutes running a report
using ROM. This means they get to go home,
be with their families, enjoy sports – all because
they are not stuck at the office generating an
end-of-day report for hours on end.’
‘The police stay out
of the yards that have
ROM installed.’
Besides the basic data, tegos also provides ‘fi ligree information’.
R E C Y C L I N G S O F T W A R E
21st Century Programming’s founders Dave and George Kane.
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