The 50th Anniversary of the World of Concrete was a landmark event for the concrete industry, showcasing the latest trends and innovations. There were many exciting new developments across the tooling and materials landscape which excited the contractors and construction attendees. While the construction side was focused on what’s new, we found that the production side of the industry was invested in solving challenges that have hindered them for years. This year’s focus on asset management, spare parts management, safety and change management, and what AI means for them underlined a significant shift in management prioritization towards making their operations more efficient and advanced.
Asset Management: Best Practices
A key trend among producers at the event was the heightened focus on asset management. The lifecycle of assets has become a primary concern, necessitating more sophisticated approaches to extend the life and performance of equipment. This trend underscores the importance of regular maintenance and proactive asset management strategies.
Beyond acknowledging ideal best practices, leaders in this area were interested in understanding how to leverage technology to make these best practices a reality across their operations.
Challenges in Spare Parts Management
Spare parts management emerged as a prominent issue. As demand surged over the past few years, producers have noticed an alarming trend from their accounting teams - spare parts rush shipping is growing, in some cases, exponentially.
Producers are looking for ways to streamline this aspect of their operations. The right balance between maintaining an adequate inventory and optimizing storage costs is crucial. It’s not just about having parts available; it’s about having the right parts at the right time. This is a challenge that uniquely sits at the heart of frontline operations - without accurate part counts of what’s on the shelf, it’s difficult to plan for from the front office.
Fortunately for our team at MaintainX, that’s an area we’ve helped thousands of clients improve and we are frequently told helps save tens of thousands of dollars for folks each year - per site!
Safety and Change Management: A Renewed Focus
Safety protocols are being re-evaluated with an emphasis on incorporating them into the fabric of organizational culture. This involves not just training and compliance but embedding safety in every operational aspect. In larger organizations, change management plays a crucial role in uniformly implementing these safety standards. It's about creating a culture where safety is a shared responsibility and a core value.
Organizations have begun to recognize the impact safety first cultures have on employee retention. As the skilled labor shortage continues, leadership across the concrete is working on prioritizing safety at levels that one industry veteran described as ‘impressive and overdue, but greatly appreciated’.
What Does Artificial Intelligence (AI) Mean for the Concrete Industry?
Concrete folks are becoming more aware of the fact that there have been significant improvements in the AI world over the past year and are starting to ask - how will this impact our businesses? The smartest folks were wondering aloud, ‘what can we do to prepare our business today to take advantage of these innovations?’A significant number of organizations, particularly on the production side, still rely on traditional pen-and-paper processes. This method creates a gap in capturing operational data that AI tools could leverage for insights.
AI’s potential in improving operational efficiency, predicting maintenance needs, and optimizing production processes requires structured, accurate operational data. By digitizing data, producers can harness the power of AI to gain insights that lead to better decision-making and process improvements.
The most important thing organizations can do today to set themselves up for success tomorrow is to begin establishing that foundation of accurate frontline data.
MaintainX: Facilitating Industry Evolution
Our interactions with clients and partners at World of Concrete 2024 underscored the real-world impact of solutions like MaintainX. Our platform, aligning with industry trends, offers tools for effective asset management, spare parts inventory management, safety protocol integration, and data digitization. Hearing from our clients firsthand about how transformative MaintainX has been towards achieving these goals was rewarding and underscored the impact our platform has on the daily operations of countless critical organizations. These conversations also served as important opportunities for us to understand how to continue building functionality to support their teams. These interactions reaffirmed the value of our solution in facilitating the industry’s evolution towards a more efficient and technologically advanced future.
Conclusion
The World of Concrete 2024 was not just a showcase of the latest technology; it was a mirror reflecting the industry's readiness for the future. As producers navigate the challenges of modernization, the importance of solutions that streamline operations and leverage the power of data is more apparent than ever. The transition towards a more data-driven, AI-enabled future is not just a possibility; it’s a reality being shaped today.
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Nick Haase
Nick Haase is a co-founder for MaintainX and is responsible for designing and leading the go-to-market strategies. He is a subject-matter expert in emerging CMMS technologies.
