As a driver for the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? franchise between New York’s Bronx and Queens boroughs, Anthony Jaen knew how important a well-maintained truck was to his day-to-day responsibilities.
Now an Operations Manager in charge of the fleet and inventory for his branch, he was tasked with ensuring their fleet of 24 waste collection trucks were maintained, operational, and compliant.
The challenge: new regulation changes in trade waste
In July of 2021, New York City’s Business Integrity Commission (BIC) put into place new legislation governing trade waste operators in the region.
For Jaen, ensuring regular maintenance was completed, vehicles were routinely inspected for issues/defects, and records were kept was suddenly elevated to a whole new level of importance.
The BIC introduced these regulations in hopes of improving a checkered safety record that has seen 51 people killed and 404 injured since 2010.
Now in effect, these regulations include requirements related to the daily inspection, regular maintenance, and record retention requirements for operators.
To satisfy these requirements, trade waste operators in NYC must:
- Conduct 2 daily inspections per vehicle
- Retain 14 days of daily inspection reports if requested by an enforcement officer
- Conduct 6 monthly periodic inspections
- Make all records available at any time within each vehicle
How 1-800-GOT-JUNK? initially responded
Anthony recalls the scramble to ensure his fleet remained compliant when the new rules came out.
At the time, this meant not only getting inspections conducted, but also physically attaching them to the back of each driver’s seat within the cab so they would be available on request.
“It was a bit of a rush to ensure we had everything sorted quickly, and I knew if I stapled them in the truck they wouldn’t go missing.” he recalled.
Finding a better solution to remain compliant and maintain the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? fleet
It’s clear Anthony has a passion for the waste industry in New York. His stories range from collecting all sorts of ‘junk’ from multi-million-dollar apartments at one job, to collecting construction waste minutes later. All in all, it’s a dynamic job never void of plenty of surprises.
“I have an 80-inch TV at home that came from someone’s junk,” he laughed.
Underneath all of these stories and experiences is the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? philosophy: “point and junk disappears”. Featured prominently on their website, it captures the company’s focus on service and ease of engagement with their team.
To be able to deliver on this promise, each vehicle needs to be safe and reliable every day, which is what led Jaen to a better solution.
“When I started in this position, things before Whip Around were a bit messy. We had a couple of guys assigned to do the inspections. They went out and took pictures of anything that was wrong, and would write it up – but things got missed.” Jaen said.
“We had trucks that were 4 months overdue on oil changes,” he admitted.
Out with the old paper process, in with the new
Anthony recalls that their old process of using paper and spreadsheets to track maintenance was prone to human error. As a result, things were getting missed.
With full routes every day, they just couldn’t afford the unplanned downtime in the event something went wrong with a truck that could have been prevented.
How Whip Around is making life easier and safer for drivers
With Whip Around, Anthony now has maintenance reminders set up so nothing gets missed, and can better plan for maintenance by seeing exactly what’s due.
“The reminders are crucial,” he said.
“Before we were using Whip Around we had no system to keep track of all of this and it caused us a lot of problems. We used to have to input all the data manually. Now with Whip Around, it does save us a lot of time” he continued.
Prepared for anything the future brings
Now that the extra requirements to meet BIC regulations have been satisfied with Whip Around, the team feels confident in their ability to adapt in the future should any requirements be adjusted or added.
As part of the roll-out, Anthony now has the ability to:
- Store all of his records digitally
- Retrieve inspection records whenever needed
- Manage the maintenance requirements seamlessly with alerts, reminders and service schedules
In a metropolis like New York City, it’s already a huge challenge for any business with a fleet of vehicles to navigate the streets, perform thousands of frequent stops in a week, all while keeping track of maintenance and inspections.
With new regulations now added to the mix for many companies like 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, an additional layer of compliance-related stress isn’t something that managers should have to worry about.
Ready to take the stress out of inspections, maintenance, or compliance?
If your fleet is facing similar struggles, let Whip Around do the heavy lifting when it comes to how you collect, store, or retrieve vehicle inspections and maintenance information.
Book a demo today and schedule a time that works for you for a free consultation.
