WSA Member Update 4.15.24

April 15, 2024 Dear WSA Members,  It is with a heavy heart that I report the passing of David E. McCaskill, Jr., long the head of one of WSA’s Founding Members, South Carolina’s ACCUSWEEP Services, Inc. David was constantly involved in promoting professionalism in the sweeping industry. He was long a leading figure at NPE, where he was ready to answer questions from any of the other contractors. I considered him one of my best friends and supporters in the industry.  In 2011 ACCUSWEEP was our Featured Contractor and you can read the story, as well as hear David’s sage advice about how to increase professionalism by promoting a team operation, at this link. To access David’s obituary page, where you can send a condolence or share a memory, use this link. I want to provide WSA members with an early link to two articles I wrote for WorldSweeper’s upcoming April e-newsletter. Because April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, this first one is on ideas for discouraging distracted driving in the sweeping industry.  The other article catalogs a real life situation about the investigation that occurred when a city bus ran into the back of a sweeper because it couldn’t be seen due to the cloud of dust it was raising. Although rear-end collisions are typically the fault of the driver in the rear, in this case because of the many mistakes made by the sweeper operator and the company that owned it – including not using water for dust suppression and not holding safety/training meetings – the sweeping contractor ended up at fault and the accident cost them several million dollars. I have contacted Walmart’s media team to request an informational Zoom or audio meeting that may allow WSA to transmit better information about the company auditing program through Auditec Solutions. If you have further information to provide on this topic please let me know. Although I asked in our last issue for members to let me know if they currently had a ‘great’ routing system, I didn’t get any responses. So, I contacted the routing software provider, FarEye, which claims to be the ‘First Choice for Last Mile.’ Company management agreed to show how well their solution works to one of our WSA members. If you have at least 5 sweepers that do parking area sweeping each day/night, let me know if you’d like to be considered for this.  They say they can provide routing information that is better than what may be made by strictly human means. They will ask you to share:Your requirements in detail (which days/times/restrictions, etc.).Your operational geography?Number of drivers and vehicles on routes?How are you handling the process today? Manual, 3rd party solution, other?Any other technology being used currently?I look forward to finding out whether using FarEye for routing might make a quantitative difference. This month, our Safety First! post has info centered around keeping your employees safe no matter what the task at hand. April’s Safety First! message discusses the following:Spring Fever Attention ProblemsHand and Finger Injury PreventionDo a Job Safety Analysis for Every TaskAdopt Protective StrategiesThe Importance of Weather AwarenessAs always, if you have questions or comments about this WSA Member Update, or anything else to do with the World Sweeping Association or power sweeping in general, please let me know. Good Sweeping, Ranger Kidwell-Ross, Executive Director World Sweeping Association

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