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Toxfree eyes technology fix in fleet

IT investments seen boosting safety and reducing costs

 

Annual profits at waste services provider and fleet owner Toxfree took a beating last financial year and the company expects technology to lend a hand in its recovery and aid safety.

Net profits were down 41 per cent to $13 million due to one-off cost and its exposure to mining in Queensland and Western Australia, but revenues were quite solid, slipping only 3 per cent to $393.4 million.

Enterprise resource planning has seen the implementation of a standardised asset maintenance system and the start of in vehicle monitoring to help with its safety task.

To this will be added implementation of time and attendance, optical scanning software.

Vehicle monitoring has been a facet of Volvo and Isuzu-friendly Toxfree’s efficiency effort in the past few years.

Last year, chief information officer Josh Bovell told CIO magazine data collection and analysis on each vehicle at a small site in Western Australia had seen driving time in 10 collection vehicles fall by 30 minutes.

Depreciation increased through investment in new fleet “to manage safety, improve service delivery and reduce repair and maintenance.

Toxfree’s average fleet age is six years.

In April, the firm spent $70 million on New South Wales firm Worth Recycling and its fleet of liquid and vacuum tankers, including heavy vacs, with average fleet age of 5.3 years.

Worth also runs Western Star, Mack and UD prime movers and Volvo and Freightliner rigids and a full year of earnings from it will help next year’s figures.

The first three months under Toxfree’s ownership saw  $16 million in revenue and $3.4m gross earnings.

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