Berliner Stadtreinigung Utilizes VMware Solutions to Increase Conservation Efforts
Berliner Stadtreinigung (BSR), Berlin’s municipal sanitation operations, is committed to turning Berlin into a Smart City—quiet, clean, and green in order to create a pleasant lifestyle for its residents. On a daily basis, BSR is tasked with finding environmentally friendly ways to dispose the waste of 3.7 million people while keeping roads and bridges clean.
BSR’s core business includes waste management, recycling, street cleaning, and winter road clearance services, and corporate social responsibility practices are an integral part of this 5,400-person company. However, providing new technologies that make employees’ work more efficient was a challenge for the IT department—especially regarding the logon and logoff processes at the 2,000 office workspaces. In order to achieve a more flexible mobile work environment for its office employees and street cleaning teams, BSR implemented VMware’s Workspace ONE integrated platform.
Innovating the Traditional Workplace
Technological innovations were at the forefront of BSR’s “IT workplace in 2020” model, and with mobile working, home office use, and more than 30 regional office locations, cultural change was imminent. For Ronald Scheer, Organization and Information Technology operator, the ability for BSR’s employees to access company data anywhere, at any time, was critical. Scheer and his team wanted to increase IT security and reduce the company’s ecological footprint through new solutions—without major cost increases.
It was also important for the team to equip waste collectors with the latest technologies. The street team at BSR struggled with not being able to empty inaccessible garbage bins and having to note that on hand-written memos. After the daily sweep, the notes were photographed by a mobile phone and sent to customer service. The service then manually transferred the information into the SAP system, resulting in lag time and increased manual labor.
VMware Provides a Timely Solution
BSR launched a pilot program with VMware’s Workspace ONE integrated platform, including the VMware Horizon 7 desktop solution and VMware AirWatch mobile device management. Positive feedback led to the decision to roll out 1,700 virtual desktops by mid-2018.
The mobile workspace positively affected the street teams, as well—allowing the entire company to stay connected. The staff on the collecting routes was equipped with mobile devices and an app, which was specially developed for BSR. Since Workspace ONE powered by AirWatch supports both iOS and Android devices, Scheer’s team once again chose VMware to transfer the app to the mobile devices of the street teams in a reliable and safe manner. Looking to the future, Scheer says BSR will have 280 collection teams with mobile devices equipped with the uniquely created app.
Successful Results
Scheer says both the virtualization of the desktops and the new mobile app are being well received by BSR employees, who find it much faster to log on and off from mobile devices. As a result, IT administrators could focus on more-important tasks, as hardware failures were significantly reduced and the migration effort minimized. Scheer says, “Thanks to the app on our mobile devices, on one hand we can see all loading points that have to be visited on one day. On the other hand, it is possible to take photos of bins that cannot be collected, save them together with a note and transfer them directly to the SAP system.”
VMware technologies have provided a major digitalization push for the city of Berlin, making workplaces more flexible. BSR is closer to achieving its goals to bring its IT infrastructure up-to-date and enable mobile working, whether on the road or in the office.
To learn more about how Berliner Stadtreinigung upgraded its business with VMware technologies, see the customer case study.
