Waste not, want not

You wouldn’t normally consider Software AG as being in the waste management business, but we are – by helping to eliminate it.

Paul Hughes Paul Hughes

Waste, wasteland, a waste of time, wasting away, what a waste, wasted opportunity, up to your waist in… well, waste.

Waste is very topical these days. Eliminating waste is fundamental to solving some of the greatest the challenges facing the planet. Unsustainability, global warming and industrial efficiency are all by-products (to some degree) of waste and eliminating waste.

You wouldn’t normally consider Software AG as being in the waste management business, but we are. Or maybe, better said, we are in the waste elimination business – helping organizations to make sure that nobody is ever up to their ankles in it. This is quite a Herculean task. Wasted stuff is everywhere.

Water and wastewater

Take water. In all its myriad forms it is a beautiful thing: Glaciers, oceans, waterfalls, rapids, monsoon rains, babbling brooks, magnificent rivers. It is also the basis of our lives; around 60% of everyone is composed of water. It is the symphony of life and fundamental to sustaining us and everyone we hold dear.

But it is a finite resource; only one-hundredth of 1% of the world’s water is readily available for human use. And we are wasting it*. One example: “Britain to face widespread drought by 2050 unless leaky pipes fixed.”

This shows how increasing populations, a warming planet and ageing infrastructure will lead to a crisis unless we act. And act we can. Technology plays an increasing role in tackling global resource consumption and fostering sustainability. Every utility company can make a difference.

We enable this through our Internet of Things partnership with telco Telstra, providing utilities with a quick way to gain insights and minimize costs involved with supplying water to customers – and dealing with wastewater.

Copper wire waste

Or take copper wire. Software AG’s customer Schwering & Hasse, from Lügde in Northern Germany, makes copper wire – lots of it; over 140,000 kilometers per day. A year’s worth of wire could stretch from here to the orbit of Mars.

By using streaming analytics, Schwering & Hasse can monitor production parameters such as temperature, conductivity, tension and thickness for each differing type of wire. It monitors 400 production lines, 20 different digital sensor types, 50,000 production events monitored per second, and 20,000 fully automated delivery pallet slots, 24 hours a day.

Prior to this, if there was a quality issue, the company would have to cut one kilometer of wire to be sure it was contained. Today, it only needs to trim off 25 millimeters.

These are just two examples. Another one is using IoT to manage the energy that buildings use – reducing waste by doing things like turning the lights off when nobody’s in.

If you throw in every one of our customers who eliminates pesky “waste of time” moments, you can see that Software AG really is in the waste management business. For the betterment of everybody.

*But do spare a thought for people who can only dream of water wastage. Please visit https://www.wateraid.org/uk/ or https://www.wateraid.org/us/ or any local organization, to help bring clean water to those in need.