Embark

commandalkon.com | 20 vendors, so there isn't a need for a large technology staff to keep systems up-to-date and working at optimal performance. Empowering a Safe Workforce Not only is productivity a major factor in regards to a worker shortage, but the ability to keep the workforce safe is a huge initiative as well. The last thing that you want to do is lose someone to a safety incident. The industry is increasingly adopting camera technologies that can watch what is going on at the production plant and on the jobsite to identify safety incidents as they're happening to help correct the behavior before it results in a tragedy. Concrete telematics solutions can provide information about the concrete in the drum of the truck right in the comfort of the cab so that drivers can simply focus on driving instead of having to get in and out of the truck and climb up and down to determine the slump of the product. Having this insight on the product during the delivery cycle and at the time the materials make it to the jobsite is going to prevent dangerous behaviors in transit and at the job. Sharing that information with internal operations, customers, and testing authorities will enable the batchman to optimize the materials at the start so that they reach the job in specification. This way, eyeballing the slump in transit or conducting quality testing at the jobsite won't be as prevalent. An Energy-Efficient, Sustainable Industry Another big industry initiative that technology solutions will support is the industry-wide sustainability initiative. The production of concrete's main ingredient, cement, is responsible for 5% of global man-made greenhouse gas emissions, per the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Many efforts are underway to make concrete more sustainable, and data sharing processes in the construction supply chain aim to decrease harm on the environment. In order to reduce carbon emissions in a significant and meaningful way, companies must look beyond their own operations and engage their trading partners in the effort. To achieve decarbonization, broad industry collaboration must occur to set out the vision, goals, actions, and milestones needed to drive the change. Supply chains need connected technologies and an active community of people. Each stakeholder in the project must have the desire to work symbiotically and share data, allowing real-time visibility across materials to create greater trust among partners and ensure the product specifications that are delivered is what was ordered. Digital Collaboration Will Create Success for Ready Mix Industry The biggest challenge in the ready mix industry is change management. Companies have traditionally lagged in digitization because personnel are typically reluctant to adopt new processes because they are comfortable with the way that things have always been done. Some of the solutions that are available now are unlike any other that has been introduced in the past, so these companies need to be made aware that these solutions exist. Once that awareness is there, then we have to work with these outdated processes and the people who embrace them to create a willingness to face the challenges that a new change in process can present to ultimately drive value. Once the challenges of implementing new solutions and processes have been addressed and businesses can operate with new visibility and easily communicate and transact with one another, we will look back and wonder how we ever conducted business any other way. In 5-10 years, I believe that digital collaboration platforms will be supporting all of the communications and transactions between all of the players in the heavy building materials ecosystem, making business flow with less friction, seamless communication, better visibility for all participants, and ultimately driving productivity for the industry. Matt Brinker serves as the Ready Mix Market Manager at Command Alkon. We began hearing a consistent message from our customer base that they wanted to better leverage technology in their operations. PREDICTIONS In order to reduce carbon emissions in a significant and meaningful way, companies must look beyond their own operations and engage their trading partners in the effort.

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