Development of a custom waste collection management application
Business Application Intranet Operations Management Custom Development Project Takeover
Takeover of the existing and finalization of the development
Operational Management Optimization: from Technical Debt to a Robust and Scalable Solution
Audit and validation of a critical HR compliance management system, time management, and all logistical processes for waste collection.
Context
SECTOR
Waste collection
SCOPE
Collection schedule, waste management and recycling centers, HR monitoring and work time tracking
MISSION
Resumption of an intranet project, finalization and deployment assistance
A national waste collection and processing operator was managing all of its operations using outdated and fragmented tools: route planning on spreadsheets, siloed HR tracking, lack of a consolidated view on the drivers' document compliance and the state of the vehicle fleet. The activity had grown faster than the tools that supported it.
In a sector where regulatory compliance is critical, validity of permits, medical visits, accreditations, ... this manual monitoring exposed the company to operational and legal risks in case of an undetected expiration. Added to this was a significant administrative burden, consuming precious time on low-value tasks.
The project had been initiated by other providers before our intervention. Our mission focused on two objectives: to establish a complete technical diagnosis of the existing situation, and then to resume development in order to secure the project and deliver a reliable, scalable, and maintainable solution in the long term.
Takeover of an existing business project
Before resuming development, we conducted a thorough technical audit of the existing application. This analysis highlighted several structural weaknesses that could compromise the sustainability of the project. The technology stack was simple and effective: Symfony 5.4, PHP 8.1, and MySQL. However, the project had accumulated the consequences of several successive technical directions that had never been fully consolidated: obsolete components, unused code, and technical elements that had become irrelevant.
We therefore delivered an objective and transparent diagnosis that constitutes the essential prerequisite for any serious project resumption. The resumption of the project then required modeling, with the client, of a particularly rich business logic with many management rules.
Before — Inherited Project
Recovery of an unfinished project and the initial specifications
After — restructured architecture
Unified and sustainable business platform, tailored to the client's business and addressing its constraints.
Listen
This project allowed us to discuss the daily practices of many stakeholders: operations managers, HR managers, and field teams.
Expectations are often very different between management and the field. Our functional analysis was able to reduce these gaps in order to propose a realistic project with a better probability of acceptance.
This project was not limited to a functional perimeter. It directly affected the daily practices of operational managers, HR managers, and field teams — populations with very different expectations and levels of digital maturity. We spent significant time understanding the real flows before designing anything: how is a tour actually created? Who validates what, and at what point? What information is most often missing at the wrong time?
Observation of field teams has directly guided our design choices. For example, the management of waste collection routes has been based on reusable models to simplify daily work and limit data re-entry. Ergonomics have also been designed to promote rapid adoption by users. Software only adds value if it is actually used.
Operational Gains
We delivered a business intranet composed of several interconnected modules, centralizing all operational processes within a single platform.
TOUR MANAGEMENT
Management of tours with reusable templates, multi-view interactive calendar, complete lifecycle tracking (planned, open, closed), assignment of drivers, crew members, and vehicles, field data entry and tour/collection slip management etc...
HR MONITORING & DOCUMENTARY COMPLIANCE
Centralized digital file for each employee, real-time tracking of regulatory indicators (driver's license, medical check-up, authorizations, time management, residence permit, health insurance, etc.), automatic alerts before deadlines, and absence management with validation workflow.
FLEET MANAGEMENT
Management of vehicle categories with their specific characteristics, maintenance and repair history, mileage tracking by route, and handling of different modes of ownership (purchase, leasing, short-term and long-term rental).
COLLECTION CONTRACTS
Contract management including service sizing, validity periods, and associations between sites and collaborators.
WORK TIME MONITORING
Training management by employee, qualification by type of activity, and consideration of actual availability for planning interventions.
WASTE MANAGEMENT & DUMPSTERS
Configuration of collection streams, waste types, destination sites, and disposal templates.
EXPORTS & REPORTING
Export data in PDF, Excel, and CSV formats across all modules, with guaranteed compatibility with existing accounting tools and ERP systems.
Technically, we have structured the application around a service-oriented architecture, implemented automated testing, static code analysis, and a production pipeline covering quality, testing, and multi-environment deployments.
Every user action is tracked: changes are logged, deletions are logical, and all operations remain fully auditable.
Client-focused
Results
| Feature | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Route planning | Spreadsheets with daily data entry | Generation from reusable templates, with availability checked automatically |
| HR compliance | Manual tracking, with a risk of missing deadlines | Dashboard with preventive alerts before expiration |
| Action traceability | Non-existent | Comprehensive audit log with a fully traceable history of changes |
| Accounting exports | Manual and time-consuming exports | Automated formats compatible with existing third-party tools |
| Fleet management | Scattered data with no historical records | Centralised records, with maintenance and repair history available at any time |
| Code quality | Approximately 30% dead code and no automated testing | Cleaned-up codebase, automated testing and an operational CI/CD pipeline |
Does your project look like this?
Take over a fragile existing system, streamline processes, activity monitoring, and traceability — let's talk about it!