The Analyzer portal’s Alerts Dashboard helps one of the UK’s most advanced facilities respond to shifting waste streams in real time
Data-backed sorting improvements, guided by Alerts
Re-Gen Waste has a reputation for their “engineering mindset”, innovating in their mission to recover high-quality recyclates.
Re-Gen process 200,000 tonnes of material a year at their MRF in Newry — one of the most advanced in the UK. To respond to changes in waste stream composition on such a large scale, they turned to the Analyzer portal’s Alerts Dashboard.
“By arming our plant managers with that information, they can now set thresholds or alerts, or study the dashboard and say ‘there’s maybe too much hard plastic arriving on this line.’ That allows them to go back and make adjustments.”
– Conor McCooey, CIO at Re-Gen
The operators use a monitor connected to an Analyzer unit to track changes in waste composition easily. They choose relevant Alerts for the belt they're watching, and the dashboard shows them live. If the fiber purity drops below their set limits, a visual alert pops up on their monitor right away.
In the below examples, a purity level is set for different product lines. The dashboard is green when purity meets the set purity threshold.
The dashboard turns red when it dips below a set threshold.
The green bar at the bottom of the screen shows "Belt status" - a continuous look at when the belt is running or stopping.
Our AI waste analytics presented the opportunity to monitor Re-Gen’s sorting processes and material in granular detail.
With that live information, their team can now:
- Adapt processes and belt speed to mass purity changes in real time
- Track the quality of their suppliers’ material
- Understand composition shifts over a full shift directly from the facility floor
- Visualise belt downtime to identify trends and maintain steady throughput
“The accuracy is a massive help for us because we’re trading on our name, and on our brand. We can all stand by our quality stamps.
If we couldn’t, our business development team wouldn’t be able to sell our product.”– Conor McCooey, CIO at Re-Gen
How we gather the live data that enables agile plant management
Behind Re-Gen’s innovative use of the Alerts Dashboard is a live stream of material data accurate enough to rely on.
To support their mission to maximise plant efficiency and maintain product quality, we calibrated our Analyzer platform to their specific waste flows to provide them with a continuous flow of actionable, real-time data.
As a result, Newry’s plant managers are better equipped to monitor composition changes, and adapt their processes using minute-to-minute insight into:
- The accuracy of their optical sorters
- How well picking processes are working
- The quality of material being baled for customers
Their Alerts Dashboard monitor is part of a wider effort to automate operations using AI, with automation on the near horizon:
“[Greyparrot’s] system…enables continuous quality assessment and control. Linked to automated sorting technology, this constantly refines the level of separation and quality output.”
– Re-Gen CEO Joseph Doherty
Using AI waste analytics as a powerful sales tool
A willingness to innovate extends beyond Re-Gen’s MRF, and across their entire operation.
After applying our AI waste analytics to their sorting and quality control processes, the team is exploring how to translate accurate waste data into an effective sales tool:
Continuing innovation beyond deployment
Re-Gen’s engineering mindset means that the company isn’t stopping at sales.
For McCooey, waste intelligence has applications that can only be uncovered by putting it in the hands of the experts on the ground:
"Our operations staff are really skilled at their jobs. They’re the best people to come up with [even more] use-cases.”
– Conor McCooey, CIO at Re-Gen
Re-Gen and the Newry MRF’s staff have translated waste data into profitability in ingenious ways. That empowerment has generated enthusiasm at Re-Gen that both motivates, and acts as a valuable retention tool:
“Everybody is very excited about the potential of the data. Once you get past initial [change management] blockers, it’ll explode.”
– Conor McCooey, CIO at Re-Gen
Learn how we helped another UK MRF improve product quality here.
