merQbiz, an analytics company serving the recovered paper (RCP) supply chain, has launched the next generation of its BaleVision quality assessment and analytics product suite. The launch includes data products with deeper insights into quality and procurement to inform buyers and sellers on quality and cost factors related to RCP.
"At its core, BaleVision is a data engine that aggregates and analyzes data points from a variety of sources - customers, industry databases, weather experts, government entities - giving users valuable insights," said John Fox, merQbiz President and CEO. "As we continually add data collected through onsite audits, integrate external data sets and improve the usability of our dashboards, the system becomes ever more powerful and smarter for our customers."
The initial analytics dashboards launched in 2019 show the contamination breakdown of each paper bale measured, along with fiber yield, material cost per ton and landed cost per ton. Building on this foundation, merQbiz has expanded the solution's modeling capabilities to find insightful correlations between supplier performance, location data, contamination type, return on investment and other actionable information.
Examples of new features include:
- Supplier Ranking dashboards in which the buyer can view side-by-side comparisons of supplier costs and yields
- Contamination Ranking revealing types of contamination - moisture, plastic, ash - by supplier and location
- Localization capabilities that allow the product to be localized based on currency, language and custom
- Deductions Report, which looks at individual probe readings and suggests cost adjustments for high-contamination bales, translating downgrades into real costs savings
- Impact dashboards, enabling users to calculate their return on investment for fiber sales or procurement
- Scenario Planning tool that uses historical data to recommend a purchase plan per supplier and the projected financial and environmental impact
merQbiz also offers multiple options for the setup and release of customer data related to RCP supply and procurement (supplier identification, mill identification, release numbers, grade cost per ton, transportation cost per ton, actual tons delivered, etc.).
"We work with each customer to determine the best - and least intrusive - approach," said Chris Brandsey, Chief Product Officer at merQbiz. "BaleVision can attach to the customer's ERP system and pull data daily to mimic a real-time experience, or the customer can opt to download their data to a spreadsheet and upload to the BaleVision system as frequently as they like."
