Even Rust-Belt Scrapyard Operators Can Figure ROI

In the years I have been working with GPS tracking I’ve met a lot of pretty intelligent fellows and gals managing fleets.  I do believe, at times, that there is a tremendous "hole" is US business education when it comes to learning the very basic principle of calculating the true cost of something by the profit it will return from you in a given amount of time.

90% (or more) of the folks managing US fleets (even with gas and diesel hitting four bucks a gallon) mange money like this … we have a budget, it’s never enough and when things are tight, corporate (or the County Commissioners, or the School Board or whomever) won’t give us any more.  End of subject, what’s for lunch?

No many companies would appear more mundane that outfits that buy loads of scrap and re-sell it at small profit margins.  Yet here’s a current story of an "old technology" company that made a huge investment and made it pay off four times a year, year after year:

Alliance was an early adopter of Recycling Operations Manager. At an implementation cost of $300,000 across all the Alliance yards, that could have been a risky bet. But Zweigbaum says he effectively recoups the investment every three months in profits. Now 21st Century Programming’s system is spreading to scrapyards across the country.  full article here.

Yes, you are right.  I’m not talking about GPS tracking here.  I’m talking about specialized hardware and software that costs proportionally a lot more than GPS tracking for your fleet.

Yet Alliance was clever enough to pull this off.  If you do the math, spending $300,000 brought in an extra $900,000 in the very first year alone.

What could your operation do with $900,000 a year extra profit?  It’s easy to have that kind of savings, and the more expensive fuel becomes, the easier it is to attain those sorts of savings.

So, when will you catch up with the rust belt?