Ready Mixed Concrete Sector and What Optimix Brings to the Sector
The ready mixed concrete companies are highly impacted by changing demand levels, which are determined by the macroeconomic trends in each country. Therefore, companies are not able to increase overall demand through marketing or sales efforts. Moreover, the fragmented character of the industry leads to fierce competition which creates thin profit margins for the companies. This takes away the pricing power from the producers. All these factors paint a challenging picture for the growth of concrete companies. They have to fight for the market share they are holding by keeping the cost low and strengthening their marketing and sales muscles.
To reduce the cost while maintaining quality, managers pursue many initiatives such as digitalization, strengthening corporate culture, increasing productivity through process improvements. Technological transformation is a requirement to increase the pace of adaptation to changing market conditions and minimize cost. We developed Optimix to support the technological transformation of the companies that are in the ready-mixed concrete sector.
Do you have a phone?
It is worth noting that most companies have quality control processes digitalized to varying degrees. However, each generation of technologies can significantly increase the efficiency of processes. Imagine we asked 4 different people who use the phones above: “Do you have a phone?”. The answer you will receive will be “yes”. However, it is impossible to think that these 4 people benefit from technology at the same level. Although they seem to serve the same purpose, there is an incredible difference between them. We claim that Optimix represents the smartphone in quality control management systems.
Optimix transforms the existing quality control processes of companies resulting in much more efficient and technological processes with the help of AI. In this article, I will talk about how Optimix benefits producers of ready-mixed concrete with multiple plants. Of course, most of these benefits also apply to companies with one plant only.
What does Optimix bring?
1- Accessibility
First, Optimix is a cloud-based system. This means you have access to quality control data from anywhere regardless of time, place, and device. This creates shared company knowledge and severely reduces the phone and email traffic to share quality-related data. For example, the quality control manager or the owner of many facilities can easily access quality data and track the process quality tests with any device connected to the internet on vacation or business trips.
2- Strength Forecast with High Accuracy
The most advanced and important feature of Optimix is its machine learning algorithms trained for each company’s data to predict the final strength of the concrete. With powerful and complex artificial intelligence algorithms developed by scientific methods, Optimix can offer these predictions with high accuracy. These forecasts help quality control managers to maintain the quality while lowering costs. Machine learning models that predict the strength of the concrete are developed specifically for each company because the materials used in concrete and the conditions such as temperature and humidity can be different for different plants.
3- Increase in Data Quality and Access
Using Optimix increases the data quality of concrete quality control processes thanks to its optimized and user-friendly data entry user interface. This improves the workflow of laboratory workers in the ready-mixed concrete plants. For organizations that are storing quality test and operational data in their systems, Optimix can capture data by connecting to these systems, which further reduces manual workload significantly. Organizations with high data quality and access spend less time by 74% on non-value-added jobs (Source: McKinsey Global Data Transformation Survey, 2019). Optimix improves the data quality and access significantly, and it does so for all stakeholders of the company.
4- Contribution to Corporate Culture
Instead of crowded excels, old systems, and e-mail traffic, Optimix promises a corporate quality control process, where each laboratory worker enters data with their own username and password, and these are recorded in a database accessible to everyone in the company. Optimix provides standardized and optimized workflows for all the plants of a company, which helps to spread the best practices across plants. This standardization also enables easy transfer of laboratory workers between plants providing flexibility to the company and employees. Quality control managers, who have access to all plants, can set targets and monitor the work in all plants. Moreover, by keeping records of each user’s transactions and taking regular backups, Optimix provides data security and resilience against any mishap, natural disaster, or sabotage that may occur in the plant.
5- Increase in Knowledge Accumulation
Optimix can be configured to store unique data and processes of different companies. This allows companies to start collecting new data about test samples that they did not store before. Also, the company can start generating value from the data they have but did not use in any analysis before. For example, when we used the wastewater data of a company in the strength prediction algorithm, the accuracy increased. It is also possible to further improve strength predictions for companies with cement information or analysis. Optimix is a valuable tool for companies in maintaining their data and improving their quality control systems.
6- Cement Saving
Thanks to Optimix’s highly accurate strength predictions, recipe revisions can be done to reduce cement without compromising quality.
The traditional method for predicting concrete strengths utilizes water-cement ratios and recent transition ratios of 2-day strength to 28-day, and similarly 3 to 28, 7 to 28. In the studies we conducted with the data we received from Turkey’s largest concrete producers, we found that the accuracy rates of these methods are below the accuracy rates Optimix achieves using machine learning. For example, Optimix predicts with 93% accuracy for the fresh concrete at the time of mixing. For the 3 to 28 ratio method to provide prediction, it is needed to wait for the 3-day test result, then it can only predict with 92% accuracy for the company that we conducted the study. Thanks to the increased accuracy of Optimix, cost reduction is possible without any quality risk. If a concrete batch is predicted to be 5 MPa above the target strength, 2 kg/m³ of cement can be reduced. This means a profit of approximately $1000 per day for a company that produces 3000 m³ per day.
7- Minimizing Quality Risks
In order to see the effect of possible recipe changes, the test samples taken should be measured and the results should be analyzed. This process takes at least 2–3 days. The ability of Optimix to predict strength from fresh concrete provides early warnings about any potential quality issues before waiting 2–3 days, which enables quality managers to take precautions. For example, when the type of cement used in a plant was changed with a previously used cement. The impact of this change can be observed via Optimix’s strength prediction. In this scenario, the quality control manager will prevent possible quality issues without losing any time by revising the recipe.
8- Reduction in Operational Work and Errors with Integration of Systems
There are several automation systems used by ready mixed concrete producers. Data on quality are also collected from these systems. By integrating Optimix with these systems, it is possible to digitalize the process from start to end. When the integration is completed, it becomes possible to access the quality data by simply entering the waybill number, and the operational effort is considerably reduced.
9- Easily Tracking Physical Tests
Optimix is not just a strength monitoring tool. It is also possible to monitor production costs and physical tests with Optimix. You can track more than 10 physical tests such as “Aggregate Particle Size”, “Methylene Blue”, “Los Angeles Abrasion Test” with Optimix and utilize the data for improved strength predictions.
10- Easy and Effective Cost Tracking
Optimix has a module where the progress of production costs and cost items can be easily monitored. This module enables accounting teams, higher-level management, and quality control managers to reach their most up-to-date costs by using quality control data. For example, let’s imagine a company with 2 plants serving a customer located at an equal distance from both plants. This company can choose to serve the customer from the plant at a lower cost thanks to readily available cost data on Optimix.
11- Continuous Innovation/ Indirect R&D Investment
Mono Analytics regularly develops new modules and features that will improve Optimix by following the latest technological developments in the industry. Using Optimix would be an indirect R&D investment for the companies. For example, 20 plants currently using Optimix will be able to access the new analysis and graph tools that we are working on. This is going to be free of charge for our current customers.
I want to use Optimix, what should I do?
We can integrate Optimix into a new company in 5–15 days after we receive their historical quality data. Companies do not need to put any effort into this process.
To reach us, simply send an e-mail to customers@monoanalytics.com.
