Introduction
Potomac Metals (PMI)—a privately-held, independent scrap metal recycling company—was founded in 1996 in Sterling, Virginia. PMI offers a variety of services to their commercial, residential, and industrial customers, and provides their diverse customer base with a combination of outstanding customer service and competitive pricing.
PMI purchases raw scrap metal and processes it at locations throughout Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland—manufacturing new commodities which then get sold to mills, refineries, and end-users around the world. The PMI team is more than 200 strong, and currently operates nine locations in the mid-Atlantic region.
Prior to using Tive, PMI was at the mercy of their brokers—as well as the dispatchers who scheduled loads. The PMI team lacked real-time insight into the location and condition of their shipments, and spent hours manually tracking their expensive cargo.
Sarah Zwilsky, CEO of Potomac Metals, says a lot of time got wasted making check calls and trying to find shipments. “If a load didn’t arrive, we’d call and follow up, or a mill would reach out to us. But if things came up—say, a truck was broken down—I had no insight into how long it took dispatch to report it to us. Tive has made PMI significantly more efficient because now I know when something has gone wrong—and I find out before anybody else.”
Proof of Value: Start Small & Ramp Up
Zwilsky and her team became interested in real-time tracking after an expensive shipment was stolen. She knew real-time tracking existed, and found Tive in an online search. According to Zwilsky, “I didn't fully realize just how much Tive would help us. Not just in terms of cargo theft, but on the back end when it came to tracking and locating shipments that hadn’t yet been delivered.”
Not only does Zwilsky believe that Tive is an effective and affordable solution, but she was also attracted to the thought of using light alerts to expose potential cargo theft events. Tive sent Zwilsky a sample tracker, the PMI team attached it to a shipment, and they sat back and watched.
Says Zwilsky, “We attached the tracker to a truck that was going locally, closed the doors, and sent it out to a mill. Our team then used the Tive cloud platform to watch as the truck moved down the road—and it was amazing to be able to watch it happen in real time.”
Keeping Potomac Metals in the Know
PMI initially wanted to use Tive to monitor only their highest-value item: copper wire. But by the end of that first test shipment, the team realized that Tive was going to help establish them as a leader in their marketplace—and they started using it on their five most-expensive products.
Says Zwilsky, “Tive has a great ROI. At PMI, we track really valuable products. If a load doesn't get to its delivery location, we’re held in limbo waiting for it to arrive—and before Tive, we didn’t know where shipments were. Tive has really legitimized our business.”
She continued, “Because I track all shipments in the Tive platform, I find out what’s going on before anybody else—and I am able to reach out to our broker or dispatch and say, ‘call your driver to find out how long this is going to take, or figure out where this material is, or find out if the driver has been in an accident.’”
This level of real-time insight legitimizes PMI’s business, especially when they sell to large mills. “A lot of scrap yards in the industry are really behind the times when it comes to technology. But if I’m able to tell a mill that their load is an hour away—and it shows up in an hour? Not many companies can do that.”
With Tive, PMI is able to set expectations with their customers—and consistently deliver. Says Zwilsky, “People can move on with their day armed with concrete knowledge of when their shipments will arrive. They’re not just sitting around waiting.”
“I spend less time chasing down loads. There is huge value in that.”
Guiding the Metal Recycling Industry into the Future of Tech
The metal recycling industry hasn’t historically been big adopters of technology. By using Tive, not only has Zwilsky established PMI as innovative, she has also taken a very active role in promoting real-time shipment visibility to companies throughout the industry—whether they compete with Potomac Metals or not.
“I didn't expect that anyone in our industry would follow us down the real-time visibility path,” says Zwilsky. “We are a de facto tech leader in metal recycling because we were the first one to use real-time tracking—and to openly talk about it in our industry. Many companies hoard information as trade secrets, but PMI had these challenges and so we started openly talking about it.
Instead of hiding the secret of their success, they shout it from the rooftops—to help improve the industry for everyone. “If you were a scrap yard looking to use Tive, I will immediately tell you about how much time Tive has saved us. You spend way less time tracking shipments, which enables you to make other operational improvements—and helps legitimize you to consumers.”
“Then I would discuss how the cost of the trackers is low, and you will immediately recognize the value. It is definitely worth spending a small amount of money to know the exact whereabouts of your $200,000 shipment. For sure. I give Tive a 10, and rave about them to anyone who will listen.”
To further this mission, Zwilsky has introduced Tive to other members of Recycled Metals Association (ReMA)—an organization dedicated to promoting safe, environmentally responsible, and economically sustainable recycling through advocacy, networking, and education. Says Zwilsky, “If theft continues to be reduced maybe there will be fewer attempts… because thieves know it won’t work.”
Reducing Cargo Theft—One Truckload at a Time
In early 2024, a load worth $200,000 was stolen from one of PMI’s recycling locations. The team had loaded material onto a truck heading to Pennsylvania, but later got a call from dispatch saying the truck had broken down and needed a part. “This kind of thing happens all the time, so we didn’t ask any questions,” says Zwilsky. But while that truck was supposedly broken down, it was actually being transported to California—and the materials were being stolen.
Zwilsky refused to give up without a fight. She called anyone and everyone in California law enforcement that would answer, left messages with every local police department, and built a few useful connections along the way.
“One day this summer, we had six trucks show up to pick up the same load. None of these six could be verified, and they all had the same California warehouse delivery address—so we quickly figured out what was going on.” She called all her new “friends” in California to ask how she could help, and one of them told her they had started working with the FBI to solve these cases.
They asked Zwilsky an interesting question: would PMI be open to loading these trucks—with Tive trackers on them—so the police could wait for one to show up to that California address? Unfortunately, Zwilsky and her team had already scared off the six fake drivers.
But according to Zwilsky, “If another driver shows up with that fake address, we are going to put a bunch of trackers in there, load it up, and hopefully the authorities can catch it in transit.”
In mid-October, 2024, a full shipment of copper was stolen—and PMI was able to monitor the shipment as it drove 400 miles past its intended destination. Armed with Tive, PMI was able to recover the complete $175,000 load within a few hours. “We would be totally out of luck without Tive,” says Zwilsky.
As Accountability Grows, Business Grows
Some of the world’s largest companies—across a variety of industries—continue to use passive loggers or legacy EDL solutions to monitor their cargo. Many of these businesses have no idea where their shipments are at any given moment, they cannot detect its condition, and they have absolutely no clue if their cargo is safe from thieves.
On top of all these other challenges, accountability can sometimes be hard to come by. Drivers don’t want to be tracked, and brokers want to leave wiggle room in case things go wrong. Switching to real-time shipment tracking is going to require every player—across all areas of the supply chain—to embrace real-time visibility as a means for improving their industry as a whole.
