FORT SMITH - “This literally takes us from managing with paper and pencil into the 21st century,” said Sanitation Director Kyle Foreman, announcing today his department’s launch of a six month pilot with Rubicon®, based in Atlanta, to deploy and test the RUBICONSmartCity™ suite of SaaS applications (Software as a Service).“Equipping our fleet of trash, recycling, and other Sanitation vehicles with SmartCity technology means rising to the level of efficiency and customer service that has become standard in the digital age,” Foreman said.
“Tapping the potential of this SmartCity platform, every vehicle and every driver will be connected to Operations Management at all times. Operations can receive a customer service request and direct or redirect our limited and valuable resources to where they’re needed when they’re needed, in real time,” said Foreman. “We expect that to save time, wear and tear, fuel—it should produce significant operational savings.”The six month pilot program began October 28 and is valued at about $105,000. It is, however, being implemented on a trial basis at no cost to the City of Fort Smith or customers.
“Rubicon Global has produced such success for other cities, they’ve built so much confidence in their own SmartCity solution, that they’re providing this pilot to us at no cost,” said City Administrator Carl E. Geffken.
“This is the most innovative kind of government contracting. Performance-based. Results-based. After the pilot, either we love the results and see this as producing valuable return on investment or we don’t move forward and don’t commit to a contract,” said Geffken.
“We have to stretch our precious budget dollars any way we can. This is a prime example of our customer-serving departments finding every way they can to do more with less,” Geffken said.The City of Fort Smith currently is nearing conclusion of its 2020 City Budget development cycle with the Budget Public Hearing scheduled for November 22.
Sanitation Director Foreman recently acknowledged publicly to the City Board of Directors that his department’s need for new vehicles and equipment exceeds its available funds. Geffken and Foreman have aggressively pursued creative and innovative programs and projects, like this SmartCity solution, to help sustain the department using existing resources, thereby reducing or delaying need for consideration of a rate increase.
