A new customer without a bin
A new gym signs up for weekly general waste and recycling, starting Monday. The office emails the yard to ask for a 1100 litre general and a 1100 litre recycling bin to be delivered by Friday. The yard supervisor reads the email on Thursday, has no spare 1100 litre recycling bins that are clean, and plans to sort it next week.
On Monday the collection vehicle arrives and finds no bin. The gym has put its rubbish in black bags on the pavement. The driver takes them, the gym rings the office, and the first week of the relationship is a complaint.
Across town, a pub that cancelled its contract a month ago still has your bin in its yard. It is now being used by the pub's new waste provider's customer next door.
Why container moves slip
Collections are planned. Container movements are ad hoc, requested by different people and carried out by whichever vehicle has room.
- Requests arrive by email, phone and word of mouth, and there is no single list.
- Deliveries have no required-by date linked to the first collection.
- Removals after cancellation are nobody's job in particular.
- Swaps for bigger or smaller bins are agreed on the phone and forgotten.
- The office has no confirmation that a move happened, only an absence of complaints.
What lost moves cost
A new customer without a bin on day one is a poor start and often leads to extra work: bags collected by hand, return visits. A customer who asked for a bigger bin and did not get it is paying for a service that does not fit.
Containers not recovered after cancellation are assets lost. Bins cost money to replace, and a fleet slowly leaking into other firms' customers' yards means buying more than you need. The office also spends time answering the same question: where is my bin?
How we build one queue for container moves
What we build treats every container movement as a job with a date, an owner and a proof of completion.
- All movement requests, deliveries, swaps, removals and repairs, enter one queue, whether raised by sales, the office or triggered by an account change such as a new contract or cancellation.
- Each job has a required-by date. Deliveries are linked to the first collection date, and removals to the contract end.
- The yard sees the queue with container availability by size and stream, and allocates jobs to vehicles.
- Drivers confirm the move in their app with the container number where you use them, a photo and the position.
- Jobs not completed by their date are highlighted to the office, and the first collection is flagged if the bin is not yet on site.
- Container records update on completion, so you always know which bins are at which customer.
| Trigger | Job created | Must be done by |
|---|---|---|
| New contract signed | Delivery | Before first collection |
| Customer asks for larger bin | Swap | Agreed date |
| Contract cancelled | Removal | After last collection |
| Damaged bin reported | Repair or replace | Before next collection |
What the week looks like now
When the gym signs, the delivery job is created automatically with Friday as its deadline. The yard supervisor sees it on Wednesday alongside the stock of clean recycling bins, allocates it to the Thursday delivery vehicle, and the driver confirms delivery with a photo. On Monday the collection goes ahead as planned.
When the pub cancelled, the removal job appeared for the day after its last collection. The driver recovered the bin and confirmed it. It is back in the yard, cleaned, and waiting for the next new customer.
Are container movements falling through?
- New customers have started without a bin on site.
- Container requests arrive by email and phone with no single list.
- Bins are left at cancelled customers' premises.
- Nobody confirms when a swap or delivery is done.
- You buy new bins while your fleet is spread across former customers.