No matter where you’re located, in this business, running out of materials is simply not an option. Intended as a cautionary “keep the bins full” philosophy, generations of suppliers have leaned into ordering more heavy materials than they need so that they’re prepared for any unexpected waste. After all, when your reputation relies on dependability, it’s best to be safe than sorry by having enough materials to fill orders regardless of spillage, product defects, and anything in between.
But there is a such thing as over-ordering materials as a safety net. Too much excess can come back to haunt suppliers when material rates suddenly change. And unless there’s a ton of space available in the yard, it may start to get tight.
Strategizing around shifting supply levels has been historically challenging for material suppliers. Now though, the industry is taking a leap forward with Material Supply’s real-time automatic inventory management — keeping track of every material at every plant.
With Material Supply, complete inventory awareness becomes a game-changing reality. The balancing act of ordering materials is over. Forecasting a plant’s inventory down to its last load unlocks the ability to order a delivery when it’s truly needed, which means no more educated guesses — only precise calculations.
With automation comes consistency. Now suppliers can count on stable cost savings by consistently matching outbound demand with inbound supply. Taking this visibility even further, Material Supply seamlessly connects to COMMANDbatch, Command Alkon's ready mix batch system, and promptly updates inventory levels, ensuring producers have accurate balances and ticket data at all times.
Sharpening your inventory strategies with a full-field view enables plants to advance in more ways than one.
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Visibility is your true safety net – Real-time insights from Material Supply confirm whether there’s enough material to get through the day — and the next several days. Dispatching, batching, silo management, and vehicle monitoring are all digitized, drastically reducing room for error and waste.
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Take back your time – With the integration of ticket data from COMMANDbatch, Material Supply skips the need to manually enter production information. We could be wrong, but we’re convinced no one has ever said “reconciling material and hauler invoices is a great use of my time.”
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Connected with data – Complete data access empowers suppliers to stay closely connected with their business partners by relaying accurate inventory and indicating when that next delivery is due. And with via a single source of truth, there’s no bouncing from system to system.
Material Supply offers customers complete raw materials management capabilities, including visibility into real-time consumption, future demand, and incoming shipments. See the value applied to your operation here.
