Getting to Know the Environmental Services Industry Digital Plans
To reinforce a healthy environment, the nations have introduced Environmental Services Industry Digital Plans. Such innovation applies robotics, artificial intelligence to reduce environmental degradation.
All the nations are aware of the pressing environmental issues that are around us, especially industrial waste, air and water pollution, and the shortage of natural resources. We are damaging the environment and making it unsafe for the coming generations to live in and also for ourselves. Many millions of tons of industrial waste are being dumped in water or released into the air daily. All these have resulted in issues like loss of natural habitat for animals, depletion of freshwater resources and scarcity of natural resources, depletion of the ozone layer, increasing global warming, and many more.
The environment service industry deals with those activities that help to measure, restrict, and prevent damage to soil, water, and air. It also deals with issues related to water and air pollution, waste management, noise, and ecosystems. The environment service industry has been rapidly growing due to the huge demand from sectors like petrochemicals, chemicals, and steel, which are keen to improve their environment. Now, this sector is moving towards digitalization through environmental services industry digital plans.
The Environment Service Industry in Singapore
Singapore has an excellent reputation on account of its clean, attractive, and green environment. This is because of the efficient environment service industry which works round the clock tirelessly to provide the necessary services. They excel at waste management and cleaning up of offices, restaurants, public places, and other commercial premises. The environment service industry also has to deal with industrial and municipal waste and other services like recycling and conservation of resources.
Rapid urbanization and increasing population have led to the increasing demand for environmental services. The people of Singapore have high standards of cleanliness and hygiene, and they are very keen to maintain their reputation as a clean and green city. To make Singapore a cleaner, greener, and more livable nation and to achieve the mission of Zero Waste, the ES ITM (Environment Service Industry Transformation Map) was launched in 2017.
To meet the growing demand for environmental services and to improve brand awareness, productivity and efficiency of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the Environmental Services Industry Digital Plans were launched.
How Does Environmental Services Industry Digital Plans Work?
The Industry Digital Plan comprises of the following features :
- Digital roadmap: To assess digital readiness and develop employee skills.
- Digital consultancy: They consult on your every step on the journey to digitalization.
- Digitized solutions: Pre-approved solutions that will help achieve digital goals.
- Digital sector projects: Grow your Environment Industry Digital Plan by taking part in pilot projects led by industry leaders.
- Project management services: To maximize the results obtained on the execution of digital solutions.
Digital Roadmap
This is to help employees improve their digital skills and to assess digital readiness. The Digital Roadmap comprises three steps; which are getting digital economy ready, growing in the digital economy and leaping ahead.
Getting Digital Economy Ready
This aims to bring digitalization in the workforce, assets, and fleet. Through this, you can make operations also digitized. This will directly impact the increase in productivity. The following are the tools or solutions that will help to achieve this goal :
- Management of fleet: These tools will help to monitor the location of the cleaning and waste management fleet in real-time. It enables the optimum use of the tools to maintain the fleet well so that downtime is reduced.
- Management of workforce: It provides solutions for keeping track of the workforce and utilizing their services at multiple sites. You can improve the skills of the workforce, motivate them, and help increase their productivity.
- Monitoring the health of assets and resources: Tools that will help to check the health of the equipment and supplies deployed at various sites so that they can be optimally used. It will enable to track and use the assets quickly, make optimum use of them, and maintain them properly to reduce downtime.
- Audit of service quality: It provides access for auditing the waste collection and cleaning services. This also helps you to review if they are meeting the service standards and take corrective action if necessary. It will reduce your human effort in tracking the services.
- Monitoring the health of the workforce: Tools that will monitor the health of the workforce, taking into view their exposure to physical or chemical agents at the workplace. It will help in safeguarding the health of the employees, improve the safety of workplaces, and enhance productivity.
Other Digitalization Efforts
- Bin Fill monitoring: Tools to keep track of the levels of the bin – fills in real-time so that waste is removed without delay. It will improve customer satisfaction and also enhance the efficiency of the waste removal team.
- Monitoring of tonnage: With this, it can help you to monitor and keep track of waste tonnage and the charges for transporting it. In this way, unnecessary trucking costs can be avoided, and transparency can also be improved.
- Smart toilet system: You can track the feedback of users of toilets, levels of odour and help the cleaning crew in maintaining the toilets. It will also monitor the consumables that need to be replenished.
Growing in the Digital Economy
With automatic pieces of equipment and machines, workforce skill sets can be utilized for different services, and the efficiency of the work can be enhanced. Following are some of the tools which can help in doing so:
- Dynamic Routing: Solutions that will help to move automated equipment on the best routes available. This tool will help in reducing costs and lessen the transit time. It can also optimize the use of equipment and vehicles.
- Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA): It is a tool to bring together various single-functions on software into a common cloud-based platform. It will help to simplify supervisory monitoring and remove the issues faced when using multiple software.
- Robotics Usage monitoring and maintenance management: Using robots that can function independently without human control and using preventive maintenance to reduce downtime. The availability of self-help guides can then be helpful for troubleshooting and which will improve the repair skills of the user.
- Machine Learning for Automated Recyclables Picking: Utilize machine learning for picking recyclables automatically without human resources. It will improve the accuracy of picking, increase productivity, and reduce overheads.
Leaping Ahead
Optimizing the use of autonomous robotics and advanced technology for maximum efficiency and productivity.
- Autonomous Environmental service vehicles: Autonomous cars with self-driving capability can be used for the collection of garbage and cleaning streets. This helps in increasing productivity, and there is also less dependence on the workforce.
- Collaborative robotics: Using robots that humans can interact with will add value to the skills of ES workers and also increase productivity. The robots can help workers with complicated tasks like lifting heavy objects.
- Training in Augmented reality (AR) / Virtual reality (VR): Train the ES department in AR and VR. This will help to recreate real-life situations in a controlled, safe environment where they can get safety training.
- Swarm robotics: Using multiple robots that can communicate with each other for a single task. It will help to deliver robotics services with the least manual intervention. This can be applied to various industries and areas. It will also result in lesser damage to property as robots can communicate with one another.
- Autonomous collection robotics: Use autonomous robots that do not require manual control for collection, transportation, and emptying of garbage bins onto trucks. This will bring more automation in garbage removal and also create jobs of higher value for the ES worker.
Digital Skills for Environmental Services Industry Digital Plans
There are two types of training courses available for the ES staff :
- Tech basic courses for environment service industry staff who are light, digital users.
- Tech advanced courses for ES management and supervisory staff who are more digital-savvy.
Support will be provided at every stage of digitalization and the SMEs can either assess their digital readiness by utilizing a self – assessment checklist or can avail of the assistance offered by the Business advisors at SME centres.
