Performance Tracking Systems

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” -Peter Drucker

Performance Tracking systems are used to measure important operational and safety metrics. We sometimes refer to those metrics as Key Performance Indicators or KPIs.

Across the waste industry, only a handful of KPIs are needed to effectively monitor most any operation. The majority of those KPIs are associated with tons, time, cost, compliance, and machine utilization.

Like the Emergency Room doctor who immediately checks a patients’ pulse, blood pressure, and respiration rate, the best KPIs track the basic vital signs of your operation.

For example, to monitor the performance of the MRF a manager might measure picks per minute, diverted tons per day for different recyclables, or percent contamination of selected commodities. Similarly, the landfill manager might track cover soil usage, tons handled per machine hour, or
airspace utilization. Or the collections manager might monitor residential lifts per day, tons per hour, density of waste in commercial bins, or overall cost per customer.

Developing and tracking KPIs within your operation is an important step toward improving your operation.