Tracking Infrastructure

The Idencia data tracking system is being used in more than 90 precast concrete plants, almost every one of which is doing so to track QC data. There is a simple reason for this: Idencia solves problems that are plaguing the QC department!

The process of working with prospective customers has been an interesting study in human nature because people typically don't want to admit that they have problems.

The irony is that most have the exact same problems!

So, we thought it would be a good idea to share the QC-related problems we have observed in the industry so that you can:

1) Know your problems aren't unique; and

2) Find good company in others using our solution.

WIth that, here are the top 5 problems that prompted our customers to use Idencia (ranked in order of impact not prevalence):

Seems like everyone is talking about the need for innovation in construction. How the supply chain needs to work together to become more efficient. How the industry needs to move from the age-old model of working in silos to a more collaborative approach. How records need to be centralized so that all parties to a project are working with the same information.

Stubbe's Precast, based in Harley, Ontario, is a big precast producer with a great reputation. They serve eastern Canada with two state-of-the-art manufacturing plants specializing in structural and architectural precast. Speak to any precaster in Canada or in the northeast United States and they will speak of Stubbe's with high regard. The reason for this is found in Stubbe's values: quality, innovation and, as they state on their website, "forward thinking solutions". 

This past week consumer apparel company, Ralph Lauren, announced that it is going to be 'digitizing' every product it manufactures. Why would a company with such well known brands (Polo, Club Monaco, Ralph Lauren Collection) go to the bother of ensuring that every product it manufactures has a digital identity? And why should manufacturers of products used in infrastructure and commercial construction care that Ralph Lauren is doing this?

In our newsletter published this week, the article that received the most attention was titled 'Why Precast Should Pay Attention'. This was our title applied to an article that we circulated about a Cleveland, OH contractor's decision to offer integrated construction services. It obviously struck a chord, so we thought we would re-frame it as a question and respond with a deeper dive into how integrated construction is a threat to the precast industry.

We have heard (separately) from two precast manufacturers that it costs $25,000 to conduct an inventory count. If there is one process that immediately justifies automated data collection, this is it.  While the cost naturally depends on the size of the yard... they both have yards of about 40 acres... automating inventory counts for yards of any size will produce obvious savings. RFID tracking is the solution to this and, with a few kinks to work out, there are a few ways that this will happen.

Seattle just completed its SR 99 tunnel, a project that replaced the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel that runs under the city and offers substantially more protection to motorists against the effects of an earthquake. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) bills the tunnel as "one of the smartest tunnels ever built".  It's no surprise, therefore, that WSDOT required that product data for the segments manufactured for each ring of the tunnel be captured and transmitted to the DOT in digital form. 

Late last year the National Precast Concrete Association released its 2018 Precast Industry Benchmarking Report, a report based on a survey of membership that describes the state of the industry and offers performance metrics for precast concrete manufacturers. This is a valuable resource for the industry and one we purchase every year. The 2018 report includes interesting data that we found very consistent with reports we have heard in our own discussions with precast producers. One glaring statistic jumps out as an immediate opportunity to grow profits. 

Customers tell us that the biggest headache in managing precast operations is in dealing with inventory. They subscribe to our RFID product tracking service because they want a more efficient way to do this. Though their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems automate management of most other business functions, they do not offer the complete inventory tracking solutions that precasters need. How nice would it be to automate this as well? 

The 'smart city' is the wave of the future and there is a lot of interest in making it happen. However, you don't seem to hear as much about 'smart infrastructure', which is curious. Every house has a foundation, and infrastructure is the foundation of the city, so it stands to reason that you can't have a truly 'smart' city unless it is 'smart' all the way down to its foundation. Idencia is all about smart infrastructure so we thought we would share our vision.