Bee'ah awarded Middle East's CIO top 50 for innovative waste management solutions technology

The award distinguishes the region's top 50 organizations for their use of information technology in innovative ways to deliver business value, which optimizes business processes, creates competitive advantage, enables growth and improves customer service.

This award comes as the company's first in recognition of its IT solutions technology which is being introduced to improve its waste management operations into a more efficient and sustainable operating system. In the past year, Bee'ah has also won awards as the 'Best Waste Management Company in the Middle East', distinguishing its innovative contributions to waste management within the regional facilities management industry.

His Excellency Salim Bin Mohammed Al Owais, Chairman of Bee'ah commented: "Bee'ah was created in accordance with the wishes of the ruler of Sharjah, His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, to address the pressing issues about our environment. It is indeed a great honor for us to receive this award for our accomplishments and technologies. We are proud of our great team who all has invested their expertise and hard work to making this achievement possible; we hope to continue this progress towards our ambitious goal of zero-waste to landfill by 2015 for the Emirate of Sharjah."

"Bee'ah's IT strategy has been reformed to reflect solutions that are unique to the operational needs of Bee'ah as a waste management organization," said Mr. Amin Al Zarouni, Head of ICT at Bee'ah. "We have identified three strategic points which we have begun implementing; an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution, fleet and bin management and the waste management system solutions. Their main purpose is to enhance, automate and optimize the current processes of our waste collections and disposal operations at Bee'ah."

The fleet and bin management system initiated by Bee'ah, in partnership with Etisalat, is the first of its kind in the Middle East. Bins located around the city of Sharjah are fitted with sensors that monitor and track the volume of waste. When a bin is almost full, these sensors transmit data back to the control center, and provide the best route for the fleet to take, in accordance with the team's schedule and vehicle's next availability. Moreover, all 500 of its waste collection vehicles are fitted with GPS tracking and computerized route-optimization systems, which are used to maximize vehicle service productivity and develop more efficient routes, thus reducing the environmental impact due to emissions from excess fuel consumption.

Bee'ah has also automated the current transactions at the landfill, allowing a smoother and more effective process of its waste management disposal system. With the help of leading technological vendors, operators at the entrance to Bee'ah's waste management centre use wireless hand held devices integrated with the weighbridge operations to process transactions within the waste management system. All customers at the facilities are identified by RFID (radio frequency identification) cards to initiate the transaction flow.

Bee'ah is fully committed to investing in innovative technology and ensuring that its expertise is utilized within the waste management industry. Therefore, Bee'ah's long-term strategy for growth would position the company as the leader of environmental change not only in Sharjah, but beyond the emirate's borders as well. Thus, Bee'ah is also looking at expansion plans to other regions of the U.A.E. in the near future, and is potentially looking at its growth towards emerging markets in the long term.