Rapid evolution of the artificial intelligence model – and data capture or analytics methods that are transforming construction material producer field, plant or back-office operations – underpinned the inaugural AggNexus Digital Innovation Conference, attended by almost 100 industry professionals.
The event – held Sept. 9-10 on the University of Texas, Austin campus, and sponsored by SEMCO Publishing, parent company of Rock Products – engaged representatives of technology-savvy multinational or independent cement, aggregate, concrete and asphalt producers plus allied software developers or service providers.
SEMCO Publishing publications Rock Products, Cement Products and Concrete Products; and Route One Publishing Ltd.’s Aggregates Business International, teamed with On the Rocks Digital, a marketing and web design specialist based in France, to present AggNexus.
AggNexus organisers mustered 10 software or service overview presentations and three panel discussions from a diverse pool of producers and current or prospective technology partners – most inclined to open applications that can be readily integrated into user-tailored suites, narrow to broad. The panels were moderated by Aggregates Business Editor Guy Woodford.
"Buying Or Creating Your Software?" panelists offered these takeaways:
- Difficulties of finding good software developers, shorter programming schedules, and overall programming costs favor construction materials producers turning to specialized off the shelf or market solutions.
- Producers with the right team and committed leadership can develop software in house and realize a unique strategic advantage.
- Developers and programmers must understand what construction materials producers’ customers need.
- Engagement and onboarding of staff or manager software users is important. Training packages typically accompanying software deployments prepare users to best leverage data.
Participants in a second panel, “Challenges and Opportunities in Digitalization for the Industry,” noted:
- First movers in new software offerings tend to enjoy a competitive advantage, although often for a limited window. They can also find themselves contributing to a knowledge base or artificial intelligence model benefitting peers and competitors.
- Users need to target fundamental, clean data captured from all existing and new platforms.
“Data is truly the new oil,” said panelist and Stockpile Reports developer David Boardman. “Capital expenditures for harvesting data will grow by an order of magnitude."
In a third panel titled “How Artificial Intelligence Will Influence the Industry” participants concluded:
- AI has different uses and varying adoption timelines in cement, aggregates and concrete production. Cement companies are leading the way with AI-enabled predictive maintenance programs, which hold great potential given their plants’ complexity.
- AI developers for aggregates operators need to embrace the process-driven nature of crushed stone, sand and gravel production.
- AI applications in concrete production are emerging for quality control, mix design optimization, plant equipment monitoring and fleet dispatching.
- AI models are of limited value without tight controls around data.
- When done right in construction materials production, AI augments a workforce to a point where the technology is transparent to a customer.
The program was assembled along with Price Bee, whose founder and principal, Barry Hudson, is a regular Rock Products contributor. Joining Price Bee as vendor participants from North America were Burgex Mining Consultants/Mineralogy Aggregates, Concrete.ai, EveryPoint/Stockpile Reports, Inform Software, and TAC Insight/Fast-Weigh. Rounding out vendor participants were CheckProof of Sweden, Eltirus of Australia, and GoBuild360 of South Africa.
Sources: Semco Publishing, Denver; Route One Publishing Ltd., United Kingdom
