Mastec is a leading Australian manufacturer of general refuse bins, recycle bins & green waste bins. The company also has bin collection contracts with councils across Australia. Datanet, a South Australian based solutions provider, has developed a bin identification solution for Mastec whereby every bin is read by a Tracient Padl-R HF RFID reader as the bin is delivered to the residential address. The tag ID is sent via Bluetooth to a Motorola MC70 Handheld Terminal which has the Datanet bin identification solution running on it. The information is then sent back to Mastec’s central database via a Telstra NextG Data Connection where it is matched up with the bin’s serial number and address.
Travis Thomas, the Datanet Account Manager in charge of the Mastec project says “Mastec asked us to develop a solution that utilises their existing handheld computers, Motorola MC70s. These devices have the barcode scan capability, Bluetooth and GPRS but not RFID so we needed a cheap, simple to use RFID reader that we could connect to the MC70s via Bluetooth. Tracient’s Padl-R HF readers have proved ideal”.
Another challenge for Datanet was selecting a reader that could be used easily by the refuse contractors, workers not generally known for their technical ability or care of technical equipment. “You will be hard pressed to find a less techno savvy type than the rubbish man and they are using the Padl-R HF readers no problem” says Neil Clarke, Datanet’s CEO.
Sixteen readers have been in use by the contractors for 6 months now without any problem.
Neil Edmond, Tracient’s Sales and Marketing Manager already has several prospects in North America looking to use the Padl-R readers for the same purpose. “Curbside recycling is a hot topic right now. We expect further interest in our readers for this purpose in New Zealand, Australia and the United States in particular” he says.
A full case study of the solution is pasted on Tracient’s website at: http://www.tracient.com/
