Service Highlight: Collections and Logistics
At Quincy Recycle, we strive to be a one-stop-shop solution to our customers and vendors. Our Collections and Logistics services help us achieve that goal and ensures we are providing the best service levels to our partners throughout each step of the recycling process.
What is Collections and Logistics?
In the recycling industry and particularly here at Quincy Recycle, we often “spot trailers” at our vendor’s facilities. That simply means we park an empty trailer at our partner’s loading dock for them to fill with their scrap material, such as plastics and metals. Once the trailer is full, a driver comes and hooks up to the trailer and hauls it away to one of our locations to be sorted and processed. Pretty simple, right? It may seem that way, but managing collections and logistics can present certain challenges.
In the past, we’ve primarily outsourced the collections process to local carriers. But, back in 2015, we started to ask ourselves if there was a better way to handle this part of our business. While we have many great relationships with local carrier partners, we would often find ourselves lacking control over certain aspects of the process. Things like scheduling, vehicle maintenance, and customer service standards were out of our hands. Those are all factors that can make or break the customer service experience for our partners.
Ultimately, we decided that to deliver consistent and reliable service that we’d need to take control of collections and logistics. So, five years ago in our St. Louis, MO location, QRP Logistics was born.
Why is controlling the collections process so important?
It’s easy to forget that the most frequent interactions our partners have with Quincy Recycle are with the drivers who pick up the trailers from their facilities. Those drivers are an extension of our business. They represent Quincy Recycle and who better to represent us than our own employees.
Our drivers are full-time employees at Quincy Recycle. They are part of our team and understand our business and are aligned with our vision and core values. When they show up to a vendor facility, they are in a branded Quincy Recycle truck cab, wearing a Quincy Recycle uniform, and provide a service experience consistent with the rest of our organization.
By taking back control of the process, we’ve been able to make the collections process more efficient and more reliable for our partners. Some key benefits include:
- Flexible pickup scheduling with the ability to offer 24-hour turnaround vendor pickup requests.
- Our drivers are part of the team and they know our business. They can often help solve problems on the spot, should they arise.
- Keeping the process in-house allows us to maintain competitive freight and material pricing.
- Consistent and reliable service experiences every time our driver is at your facility.
QRP Logistics – Past, Present, and Future
We already touched on how our in-house collections and logistics service began in St. Louis, MO back in 2015. Since then it has expanded into additional locations including West Bend, WI and Alsip, IL. Most recently we launched QRP Logistics at our Cedar Rapids, IA location. The results have been extremely positive so far and they’re already looking to add additional trucks and drivers to the mix to help keep up with the workload demands.
“It’s allowed us to provide great customer service. Our drivers interact with contacts at vendor facilities regularly and having them be Quincy Recycle employees is invaluable.” – Chad Crawford (General Manager – Cedar Rapids, IA)
QRP Logistics has allowed us to achieve greater alignment across our organization and our services offerings. In the end, it’s simple. We want to provide the absolute highest level of customer service possible. QRP Logistics helps us to achieve that goal and is something we’ll continue to invest in and grow. It’s an important component of our service offering and one that allows us to be the one-stop-shop solution our partners are looking for.
Are you interested in learning more about Quincy Recycle?
Quincy Recycle solves complex waste stream problems for manufacturers and other industrial supplies. We have an expansive service network spanning from coast-to-coast. Contact us today if you’re ready to take the first step towards achieving your sustainability goals.
Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for the latest in industry news, recycling trends, and more!
And, check out our About Us page for company background and our Careers page for information on how to join our team.
Gaylord Boxes
What’s in a name? Boxes used in manufacturing sure do have a lot of them. You may hear them referred to as “pallet containers”, “bulk boxes”, “pallet boxes”, “skid boxes”, or “bulk bins”. One of the most common and strangest names for a box used in manufacturing is “Gaylord box”. An industry staple in the world of manufacturing, you may use this name everyday without knowing where it actually comes from.
The first Gaylord boxes were produced nearly 60 years ago, by The Gaylord Container Company which was originally based in St Louis; hence the name. Originally just one specific type of packing box, the term has evolved over time to encompass many different sizes of box products. There have been some buyouts and headquarter changes, but the company that founded the Gaylord box still exists today.
Gaylord boxes are a vital component to any manufacturing operation. So how would you feel if we told you that you were paying too much for yours? Or that you were costing your company a lot of money by throwing them out?
Well, you probably are.
These boxes can hold hundreds, even thousands of pounds of product. Corrugated cardboard is the star of the show, and makes them physically capable of withstanding intense weights and pressures. Corrugated cardboard is a fancy way of saying reinforced and strong paper products made to resist tears and take a few transit punches along the way. Suffice it to say these boxes are basically indestructible. So why would anyone only use a box once?
In our one and done society, still usable and functional items are often put to pasture well before their true expiration date, and these boxes are no exception. Sure, you could keep paying $20-$30 for a new box every time you are ready to ship. But we recommend seeing the light at the end of the savings tunnel and paying a fraction of new box cost for a perfectly re-usable used box instead. If you have empties up for grabs we will happily take those as well, saving you invaluable waste removal costs and creating a revenue stream where you once had only costs.
Contact us with questions or to check availability, and let’s see how much we can start saving you today!
Quincy’s Safety Milestones
At our core, we strive to create a work environment with a foundation that is built on mutual respect. No one is more important than the other, and we only achieve optimal performance when we work together. We also recognize that our team members have people counting on them coming home at the end of a long day.
That’s why, out of our many Core Values, the most important one is Alive & Well. This job can be a dangerous one. It can mean observing or operating in a plant you just walked into for the first time. It can mean operating a baler or driving a forklift in the plant you come into everyday while remembering there is a fine line between familiar confidence and foolhardy risk.
To err is human, to emphasize safety is Quincy Recycle. We start every manager meeting with acknowledgement of safety examples or changes made to improve safety. We ask our associates to hold each other accountable to our published safety standards on a daily basis. Responsibility for self and others is at the forefront, as well as a focus on learning from past mistakes and near misses. Safety results are always more important than production results, and we would argue that safe manufacturing and processing practices actually herald efficiency. We conduct monthly company wide safety meetings, where we share and train on topics that are critically important to keeping our team members and our facilities safe and we learn from mistakes and near misses.
But physical safety is more than just showing up to work and staying safe and whole. We also provide free annual physicals and discounted health insurance premiums to our associates who participate in our wellness program. We believe that if you feel good, and you have the tools to be proactive and preemptive with your own personal health, you’ll not only be healthier overall, but you’ll be a more attentive and active employee. Taking care of people is the right thing to do, and it’s just good business. Investing in our people and respecting the roles they play and jobs they do enables us to also empower them to thrive.
We do all of this because our bottom line is dependent on our people. Our colleagues are an extension of our families. Our jobs entwine together in a web of success, each strand just as important as the next; we need every employee healthy and energized, in order to be the company we want to be.
Your Waste Audit
The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one. Sorry to hit you with philosophy right out of the starting gate, but we figured time is money, and you’re probably losing some as you read this. How do we know? We know because you’re a manufacturing company and studies show that on average, more than 70% of what you throw out isn’t actually trash at all.
So what does that mean? It means you’re paying too much for waste removal and replacement products, some of which you could reuse. It means you’re missing out on great free PR; sustainability is on everyone’s minds these days. But most importantly, it means we can help you save more (materials, money, time) while you waste less.
We are a national recycling company that specializes in helping manufacturers like you recognize opportunities to improve and start performing at optimum utilization of your resources and inputs (raw materials, packaging, capital, and human resources). We believe profits and sustainability aren’t mutually exclusive. That’s why we do what we do.
Once our team is able to observe your current sources of waste generation and means of collection and disposal we will develop a plan of action tailored to your various waste byproducts. We will determine what can be reused and give you options when it comes to what can be recycled. Options that will absolutely save overall waste stream costs and quite possibly create revenue streams. Innovation is the name of our game, both internally and in our waste audit plans. If we can find ways for your process to operate more efficiently and generate less waste, we will help you implement those solutions. What an easy way to engage your team in sustainability goals that improve the thumbprint your facility leaves on our planet and boosts your bottom line.
We don’t stop there, though. Account management teams will continually analyze your waste stream, helping you offset production and waste removal costs even when your process and products change. This is an ongoing process, and we believe there is always room for improvement. It is a collaborative and team effort.
To us, sustainability is achievable and made possible with Quincy Recycle’s involvement. It requires implementing realistic waste reduction goals that help your overall operational efficiency and showcase your ownership and responsibility in waste stream management.
Let us help you start to take those small steps today. We’re game if you are.