The Tönsmeier Group is active in the waste management and raw materials market, from pick-up and handling to processing and delivery. This family-owned business in-cludes around 70 locations in Europe and is active in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland and the Baltic states. RegioGraph supports Tönsmeier in the visualization of its regional assignments, tracking of the competition and planning of efficient transport networks. Interview with Manuela Schlüß (sales) and Sandra Wolting (marketing).

How does your business work?
The waste management market is currently undergoing a great deal of change: In previous days, one spoke of our business as refuse collection; recycling then became popular and a standard practice; today it's possible to characterize our business as a "resource industry". Much of what was once just thrown away is today treated as valuable raw materials for new products or the energy industry. All of this material must be transported to the correct location in order to be processed correctly.

How do you implement geomarketing?
Tönsmeier is involved throughout all stages of this process, from pick-up to delivery. Usually we are commissioned by municipalities in Germany, but we also take part in Europe-wide waste management bids. We have our own fleet of vehicles and numerous factories. This includes classic logistics locations in addition to 30 sorting and processing facilities. It's not at all easy to keep track of this - this is precisely why we implemented RegioGraph!

How long have you been using a geomarketing approach and RegioGraph?
For around five years. We wanted a software that would visualize our work cycle and found precisely what we were looking for with RegioGraph. We work daily with the software, as our market and vehicles are in constant motion. Since we first started using the software, we've expanded the scope of our geomarketing analyses as we've discovered more and more areas in which spatial analyses can help us.

Which challenges do you accomplish with RegioGraph?
Most of all, we use it to visualize our nationwide network directly on digital maps - for example, delivery flows between our locations. This includes using RegioGraph to visualize the start and destination points of our deliveries as well as nationwide delivery volumes. This overview is absolutely indispensable since we have multiple "product levels". We also use RegioGraph to visualize the boundaries of our market area and keep an eye on the competition. It's also important that we use the software to distinguish between municipalities that we currently serve and those not on our routes. We color-code the municipalities directly on the map, which gives us an overview of our market. This allows us to easily identify municipalities that are within our coverage areas but that we don't yet serve.

What's your take on working with RegioGraph?
RegioGraph is an immensely helpful software that we learned to use very quickly thanks to your competent consultants. We're glad to have access to your staff and the user hotline, particularly for tricky tasks. We continue to be amazed by RegioGraph's visualizations of our complex business processes and the resulting insights this makes possible.

Tönsmeier

Since the late 1920s, the name "Tönsmeier" has stood for responsibility, reliability and advancement. A successful mid-sized group of companies, Tönsmeier offers it customers a full spectrum of modern waste management services. Tönsmeier provides services for commissioning municipalities commerce and industry as well as private use. The company offers the latest environmental services through its approximately 3,500 employees and a fleet of 1,100 special-purpose vehicles. The company's more than 30 processing facilities make an important contribution to the protection of natural resources.

Contact:

Boris Ziegler
Public Relations Tönsmeier
ziegler(at)toensmeier.de
www.toensmeier.com