OF TODAY'S MATERIAL FLOW IS NOW ITAD VS. ORIGINAL 80% E-WASTE
ABOUT URBAN MINING:
Urban Mining is a technology company focused on providing innovative solutions for the management of end-of-life electronics and the recycling of e-waste in manner that promotes the stewardship of the environment. They’re using technology, data and a smarter approach to reduce costs and deliver value far beyond traditional recycling. Their solutions cover the full range of IT asset management and disposition; DoD compliant data destruction, resale of assets with marketable value and the complete teardown of old electronics.
THE CHALLENGE:
Urban Mining launched its business in a competitive market planning to focus on the e-scrap business and leverage the opportunities presented by a fragmented landscape and lack of certified recycling companies. It quickly became evident that the real need was among customers who required a full service, certified recycler who could manage their IT Asset Disposition in a manner that met their security and performance requirements. Urban Mining’s business requirements were changing quickly. The primary flow of material was shifting from eWaste to ITAD making tracking and reporting essential to meet demand. In order to respond quickly, Urban Mining sought to find an industry specific platform that would plug them into best practices and quickly support their pivot to IT Asset Disposition.
THE SOLUTION:
Urban Mining selected the Makor ERP to run it’s business on.
With a short timeline in place, Makor set out to implement a full feature solution with its standard best practice ITAD process flow to guide the audit, testing and inventorying processes needed to support the incoming volume. This included an inbounding process connected to an efficient sort with bar coding of reuse material, connected to a guided test and refurbish flow. To accommodate high value shipment scenarios not requiring initial sort, Makor also setup a material flow from inbound directly into the Testing queue to allow for quicker inventorying. Everything was deployed connected to the Makor ERP’s customer management system, scheduling/logistics and financial tools to ensure all key business units were working in tandem towards settling the customer and building inventory.
After initial trial use, Makor was able to take user feedback and provide additional configuration optimization and training to help Urban Mining make the adjustments needed to support their new line of business.
THE RESULT:
By working with Makor Solutions’ Top Tier Implementation team to roll out the Makor ERP™, Urban Mining’s expectations were exceeded as they were able to productively handle the material flow transition of 80% eWaste to 70% ITAD.
Urban Mining is reporting that when receiving thousands of assets from their enterprise clients, what used to take days to process for resale is now taking hours.
“Implementing the Makor ERP™ and working with the Makor Solutions team has allowed us to take on new business while staying focused on our customer as opposed to worrying about how to make the system work,” stated Steven Kaufman, CEO, and Urban Mining.
Downstream IT Asset and part sales have risen considerably using the Makor ERP™. “The system has helped us manage downstream sales as we have grown from selling a few items a day on eBay to selling hundreds a day across four e-commerce platforms and a retail operation,” stated Mr. Kaufman.
Urban Mining has also benefited from built in services to generate new revenue streams. “The Makor ERP™ has allowed us to easily integrate off-site data destruction, meeting clients’ needs and generating a new revenue stream,” added Mr. Kaufman.
“Makor Solutions experience servicing ITAD companies with a track record of success was very impressive. In addition, we found their Makor ERP™ platform to be the only option on the market with the suite of tools we needed to grow our business quickly. I’m confident that if the system doesn’t already do it, I can work with them to get it done.” concluded Mr. Kaufman.