North America 2018
66 \
World Cement
day, spot-checks will be the mutual agreement of both
provider and recipient, whether a walk-around or drone
flight for the job site or order transfer location.
The traditional standard practice of estimating
inventory volumes is that, when material is dropped
off, the recipient is handed a ticket stating volume
and/or weight. When that data is put into inventory, a
conversion factor is used. This results in inconsistencies
and erroneous inventory baselines for any given pile,
with opportunity for error at each stop, compounding
the problem. There is a massive potential for savings
from a programme of more frequent measurement
along the way.
At some point, real-time data will seamlessly flow
into all company systems: ERP, production, sales, and
finance. All parts of a company will operate with full
knowledge of what is on the ground, at all times.
Impact on the industry
The industry may have been lagging in technology
adoption and digitalisation, but now data is at its
fingertips – and now they have even more than they
know what to do with. The challenge will be to apply the
technology and data to the right business problem. Silos
of different types of mixtures and a huge scale house
need to know exactly which mixture is in which tank for
the slurry. What if the same precision and monitoring
were applied to the rest of the pre and post-production
stages? It is possible to achieve no-touch inventory when
the right applications of technology are incorporated. All
that is left is review and approval. This can dramatically
reduce effort, time, and cost: realistically up to 90%
savings can be achieved.
About the author
David Boardman is the Founder and CEO of URC Ventures
and Stockpile Reports.
No-touch inventory with full services handling
inventory.
Accuracy with photogrammetric measurements is within
1.6% of LiDAR.
Note: Based on six months of measurement by TX DOT,
finding iPhone measures within 1.6% of LiDAR.
Views of the dashboard supplying data insight to decision-makers company-wide.




