Overview

Andy and Mindy Harpenau founded Hillside Solutions, a waste-hauling business in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2004 with the goal of becoming a zero-waste hauler. Hillside owns 15 trash and recycling trucks and services more than 8,000 customers, and it contributes to the local community as Omaha’s first and only composting farm. Hillside partnered with Rubicon in 2018 to scale their business, increase route efficiency, track issues at the curb and improve driver and customer satisfaction. Working with Rubicon, Hillside implemented features including exception logging, the dispatch board, the route tracker, customer communication, and route assist to help achieve its goals.

Challenges

Before partnering with Rubicon, Hillside had only three drivers that worked daily overtime hours. Hillside’s operation was paper based, making it difficult to track service and to dispute missed pickup complaints. The company lacked the evidence to charge for go-backs and struggled to manage its growing customer base on paper routes.

Business growth

Hillside has grown its operations significantly with Rubicon’s help. Operational resources have increased from three to twelve drivers, allowing the company to grow its customer base. Mindy Harpenau tells us, “From 2020 to now, our customer base has more than doubled.” This growth enabled Hillside to develop a compost club with over 70 commercial businesses that sponsor compost drop-off sites. Overall, the Rubicon technology has empowered Hillside to efficiently manage its growth by providing digitized customer, route and resource management tools in one system.

Route efficiency

At the onset of the partnership, Hillside sequenced all their routes in the Portal, leading to vast improvements in route efficiency. Now, even as their customer base grows and collections per route increases, drivers service routes in the same amount of time as they did before. Pickup efficiency on commercial routes has increased from an average of five lifts per hour to more than seven. Residential trash route efficiency has increased 122%, from an average of 23 pickups per hour in 2019 to 51 pickups per hour in 2023. Similarly, residential recycling route efficiency has increased from 35 to 54 pickups per hour. The sequenced, more efficient routes have helped Hillside save fuel, reduce driver overtime and improve customer service.

Go-backs

Since using Rubicon, Hillside has seen a reduction in unnecessary go-backs and customer complaints. Drivers capture photos of issues at the curb (i.e. not-out, blocked, overflowing and contaminated bins) using their in-cab device to provide supervisors with realtime updates from the road. Supervisors then email these timestamped pictures to customers to verify why their bin was not serviced. Photographic evidence has led to a reduction in repeated instances of contamination and other issues and a decrease in complaints, as customers are notified of issues in near real time.

Contaminated bins have decreased since adopting Rubicon. This has boosted driver morale, as drivers have had fewer instances of manually decontaminating bins. Not-out bins have also decreased since adopting Rubicon, leading to fewer go-backs. By continuing to log issues, Hillside will save approximately $849,750 per year in avoided go-backs. Mindy praises the new system, saying “There is nothing more satisfying than having a customer call in to complain about missed service and having concrete evidence that their bin was not out.”

Customer satisfaction

Customers are more satisfied with Hillside’s service because of improved communication. Customers now receive email notifications for delays in service due to weather events and can prepare for service changes ahead of time. Service completion is also more transparent, with improved communication on missed service and issues at the curb.

Conclusion

Since deploying Rubicon, Hillside has reduced go-backs and improved customer and driver satisfaction. Hillside has become more efficient, enabling the company to double its customer base and facilitate a composting drop-off initiative. In partnership with Rubicon, Hillside is a leader of efficient, sustainable resource management in its community.

The Rubicon fleet technology described in this article was acquired by Routeware in August 2024 and has since been fully integrated into the company’s offering. To learn more about how Routeware can help your fleet business maximize resources, optimize routes and improve service, visit: https://routeware.com/rubicon-smartcity/