True grit

Brendon Petsch, Chief Technology Officer at OUTCO, sheds light on the intricate world of keeping businesses operational through the winter

We often bemoan the way that bad winter weather can bring our country grinding to a halt, but the past decade has seen snow and ice clearance grow ever more sophisticated. However, with so much occurring under the cover of darkness – or even more mysteriously in the digital ether between smartphones and server rooms – it can be astonishing how much technology is keeping businesses running in the toughest conditions.

To shine a light on this process, let’s take a ride with an OUTCO customer. Meet John, Senior Operations Manager for an online retailer. It’s 7am on a frozen winter morning and he’s carefully driving in to start work at his company’s fulfilment centre in the Midlands. Having already passed two accidents, he’s wary of the icy road surfaces and already thinking ahead to the logistical challenges this might throw up during the day.

As he arrives at work, he passes several trucks already crossing the huge concourse, apparently undeterred by the conditions. While their onward journey may present challenges, the site itself is working as usual.

WINTER GRITTING CONTRACT SET UP

To understand how, we need to go back several months when John was on holiday in his shorts and flip flops and a contract to grit the fulfilment centre was being agreed. When a new site is brought on board – which often occurs in the spring or summer – a survey-based assessment takes place which details the nature of a site and the specific risks likely to occur. This, in addition to the customer’s risk appetite, sets the activation triggers for a given site. Some clients may accept a standard road surface temperature of 0ºC to activate a winter gritting visit, whereas more risk averse customers may impose even more stringent rules on gritting criteria. These rules are all established and locked in at the survey and contract stages.

AUTOMATED SERVICE TRIGGERS

OUTCO receives and processes a daily raw data weather file with tens of thousands of data points over a 24-hour period, containing numerous weather variables – including the all-important road surface temperatures. With so much information, it’s simply unusable to a human operator and has to be automatically imported into a patented weather app within our bespoke CRM system, Nimbus, and analysed using our proprietary algorithms.

The CRM system cross references the weather data points to the variables and rules for John’s site and creates a yes or no decision for winter gritting or snow clearance. Once John’s activation threshold has been reached, a winter gritting job is automatically created and the OUTCO team is despatched to site.

On the coldest of nights, this automated process can generate up to 10,000 gritting and snow clearance jobs for various clients across the country for delivery that night in a matter of minutes.

As well as generating the jobs for the evening ahead, the weather app and CRM system send out pre-service notifications to clients to let them know to expect a visit and what service will be delivered. This includes a snapshot of the weather data and other variables that informed the decision to trigger their service.