The My Concrete app shows customers exactly where their concrete delivery is.
A NZ-first, it was developed by Sandfield with Allied Concrete to make jobs easier for the construction industry.
Allied Concrete and its associated concrete layers provide professional concrete solutions and services, with 50 plants and several mobile plants nationwide. They poured more than one million cubic metres of concrete in the past year - an average of one Olympic swimming pool per day. Demand is increasing with a number of important construction and roading projects underway throughout the country.
"The Allied Concrete call centre is flooded with enquiries daily from 2 am, construction projects often need concrete deliveries confirmed to start their working day. We're currently averaging around a thousand truckloads of concrete pours per day - which is about 40 truckloads every hour. We wanted a technology solution that would automate this volume effectively"
- Dave Barker, National Sales and Marketing Manager for Allied Concrete.
"The design of the My Concrete app simply centred around what people wanted. We went on site and talked with everyone involved in the concrete order journey - from the Allied Concrete call centre staff to delivery truck drivers, to the construction workers and project managers"
- Jonathan Clarke, Solution Manager at Sandfield.
My Concrete includes real-time mapping and arrival estimates of individual concrete orders, with details of truck size, load size and schedule details. The app also integrates weather mapping and live traffic feeds, which are critical in predicting the likelihood of thermal and plastic cracking when pouring concrete.
“Once the concrete is set, it’s set. A continuous pour is crucial to a successful job - My Concrete enables that steady pace and continuity. The app lets users securely share job information with other app users to keep our customers who are contractors, pump operators and others informed on concrete progress, to be able to manage the concrete and their time more effectively,” said Mr Barker.
“The company’s biggest call centre is in Auckland and since launching the app, has had a major decrease in calls because of customer confidence in the My Concrete app. This has freed the team up to increase the number of outgoing calls; enabling better planning, service delivery and ultimately doing even more to meet our customer needs,” added Barker.
“Around any supply chain, there are different parties all trying to pull off the end goal. My Concrete is a tool that streamlines all of the important data and factors involved in pouring concrete to enable these stakeholders to work more effectively together and achieve that end goal much more easily,” said Clarke.
“We want to make hard easy during these especially busy times. The app also has a review capability to ensure we’re getting continuous feedback from customers on product and service, to ensure we keep making jobs easier for them,” said Dave Barker.
The next staged release of My Concrete will see Allied Concrete and Sandfield developing the ability to customise scheduled jobs, adjust job spacing, provide site access details and enable customers to easily order concrete on the spot during busy projects.
The My Concrete apps can be downloaded by Allied Concrete customers here:
