Webinars spotlighting the opportunities for transport optimization in the construction supply chain

With a series of short (and free) webinars, the AMCS Group will spotlight the building materials and construction industry, focusing on optimizing the distribution of ready-mix concrete, cement and aggregates. Industry experts from AMCS will paint a picture of market trends, pains, and the opportunities that unavoidably accrue from that. From their years of experience in the building materials and construction industry, they will discuss how companies can tackle these challenges, and even turn what seems as disadvantages into a competitive advantage.

Ready-mix concrete distribution

Growth in the global ready-mix market is driven by a rise in demand for sustainable infrastructure, an increase in urbanization and industrialization in developing countries, as well as a surge in construction activities in general. Timely delivered loads of ready-mix concrete are essential to assuring both continuous work at the construction site and a high-quality poured ready-mix. Real-time re-adjustment of planned orders is therefore of the utmost importance.

To achieve this just-in-time delivery, ready-mix concrete producers have to tackle a series of challenges. This webinar covers the major pain points for ready-mix producers that can be addressed with technology and digitalization. For instance, the plans are ever-changing, seeing orders being altered 15-20 times prior to execution, either in volume, delivery time, ingredients, or all of the above. Other possible changes could include the uploading and unloading, number of staff, and timing.

Furthermore, constructors need a constant pour to avoid setting issues. Ready-mix concrete has an extremely short product lifetime and time windows sometimes need to be as narrow as 10 minutes. With the short product lifespan, a certain rhythm and flexibility in deliveries are required, which can also take unforeseen circumstances into consideration. Therefore, the production, mixing, and transport need to take other factors into account, such as traffic or delays at the building site.

Finally, the number of staff on the building site impacts the pace of the unloading, making those challenging to anticipate. Unloading times can also be difficult to manage due to the variation of truck sizes and capacities, including different types of pumps and conveyors.

During the ready-mix concrete webinar, the industry experts will discuss how intelligent optimization software can help overcome these challenges, increase efficiency and drive agility while improving margins.

Cement distribution

Growing demand from construction activities supports the market growth of the cement industry and the market size for cement will accelerate accordingly. Cement distributors face especially difficult challenges with the cost of transportation constantly fluctuating. Around 30-35% of the price of cement comes from the distribution costs. Empty runs and having a strict, non-flexible planning scheme between vehicles, plants, and regions drive the cost of cement distribution up even further. To protect margins and stay competitive, it’s critical for distributors to lower those costs.

In addition, this webinar will cover other significant pain points in cement distribution that can also be addressed with smart technology and digitalization. One challenge is managing large orders on large contracts, which can be bulk and/or bag orders. Manual planning can be extremely demanding on your resources. You need to ensure profitability on the orders to protect your margins.

An important factor for cement producers, which can impact operational efficiency and margin expansion, is the use of external haulers. The management and communication with those third-party partners, as well as the tracking of orders and execution, is challenging to say the least when it traditionally means dealing with an overwhelming paper trail. It is possible to solve the problem while empowering your operation with smart software and enabling your external haulers to bring their own devices.

All this and more during our cement webinar on June 10th. Join our industry experts as they introduce how intelligent optimization software can help overcome these challenges while expanding margins and excelling growth.

Aggregates distribution

As with cement and ready-mix concrete, two of the major opportunities for the aggregates industry are the rapid industrialization and urbanization in developing economies and the increasing mega construction projects across the globe. The rise of investments in infrastructure is driving the pressure on the global construction and building materials industry, including deliveries of aggregates, causing an increase in the sourcing of recycled and secondary aggregates in some regions. As primary aggregates are increasingly in higher demand, the future could depend on secondary and recycled sourcing.

During this webinar, our industry experts will discuss how producers and distributors of both primary and recycled aggregates can tackle these challenges and be able to respond to the industry developments while meeting the growing market demand. Aggregates can cover a variety of different types of products and business units, including, but not limited to gravel, sand, stone, and asphalt. As opposed to cement and ready-mix, these aggregates can often be ordered without a set contract, making it important to be able to protect the margin and profitability.

During this webinar, our industry expert will also talk about the trends, and potential pain points, that are currently forming in the industry. For instance, roll-off containers used to transport construction and demolition waste away from building sites are increasingly also being used to transport aggregates to the building sites, thereby making a type of hybrid business. It’s a win-win situation, maximizing the use of otherwise empty containers and empty “runs” on the road.

Seeing as companies are starting to source recycled and secondary aggregates that are considered “waste” to other businesses more often, the webinar will also review the business possibilities of this development and give their view on sustainability and a circular economy within the construction supply chain.

As the webinar explores what the future of aggregates may hold, the topic of course lands upon the possibility of the deployment of autonomous vehicles in quarries. In some regions, these are already being used more and more, which will provide an additional challenge in terms of technology.