A lot of trash has gone into this

The world generates more than 3.5 million tons of garbage every single day. That is almost half a kg per person, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Many organizations are lobbying everywhere, trying to downsize the trash pile of each individual. However, the problem we currently face is how to manage this growing amount of garbage spread all over our cities. How can we make our cities smarter to cope with the challenges the world faces the coming years.

A Smarter City

There are many startups, companies and cities involved in the consortium ‘Smartcities’. Smartcities gathers challenges, knowledge and willingness to realize smart solutions for the public sector. One of these solutions is smart waste management. Aptus, a Kortrijk based IoT integrator in Belgium, has upgraded some trash bins in the city of Knokke-Heist. They deliver insights about the waste level of these bins on a regular basis through IoT sensors. Aptus publishes this data on their IoT cloud based platform Citysense. With all of this data inside the Citysense platform, Knokke-Heist became a smarter city.

But what now? We have these shiny trash bins, shouting data into the cloud. All that data hanging there without anybody worrying about it. Why do we make Knokke-Heist not just smart, but super smart!

A Cloud City

Internet of Trash, an IoT story - cloudcity

Now comes the fun part! We want all that data to work for us. Therefore, we connected Aptus’ Citysense platform containing all that sparkly IoT data, with Salesforce IoT and Salesforce Service Cloud. This proof of concept, a final work project for the Erasmus Hogeschool Brussel, has been given the title Cloudcity. This project aims to be an example of a holistic solution which can be created using IoT in Salesforce. We have wonderful data, we have flexible tools to manage this data, and we certainly have the tools to service the assets that are generating this data.

Salesforce IoT

Internet of Trash, an IoT story - orchestration

Knokke-Heist is now really the smartest city around! Cloudcity extracts the latest state of the trash bins in Knokke-Heist using the revolutionary GraphQL API. Next, Cloudcity publishes platform events on the Salesforce EventBus. This EventBus can also be nurtured directly from outside Salesforce. All depending of the integration possibilities that are presented to you. The Cloudcity Orchestration picks up these platform events. The Orchestration uses a set of rules to determine the state of the asset and which action should take place. Such an action could be the creation of a Work Order to empty the trash bin.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

Field Service Lightning

Internet of Trash, an IoT story - FSL Logo

But wait, there is more! By not only using Salesforce Service Cloud but also leveraging the power of Field Service Lightning, we can do so much more. We already have our Orchestration creating Work Orders for us. Then, by telling Cloudcity that emptying a trash bin could take up to 15 minutes (we like to keep things tidy and very neat), Cloudcity will also make a Service Appointment for that asset. Now, when you know that assets belong to a Service Territory and several Service Resources are operating during different Operating Hours within that territory, we can play magic. During the night, Cloudcity will optimize and schedule all the Service Appointments for the upcoming day. By the time the technical workforce of Knokke-Heist shows up at the premises, Cloudcity will have dispatched all appointments to the available workers. At this point, no single finger has hit a keyboard or clicked a mouse button. The workers launch their Field Service Lightning app on their tablet or smartphone and they are ready to go to their first Service Appointment. Did I already mention that Field Service Lightning can actually route your appointments, depending on traffic, how cool is that?

 

Internet of Trash, an IoT story - Cloud City Infographic

So what now?

If you or your company has the need to create, interpret or act on real life data, Aptus and GEN-C have things covered! We can handle all sorts of Internet of Trash or better, Things and provide valuable solutions to streamline your internal processes. Because IoT is everything but trash, it is the trigger of a better you.

Curious how Salesforce IoT could help solve your business requirements over a cup of coffee? Schedule a meeting on our contact page.

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