Pioneering Concrete Cloud Technology in the Rocky Mountains
A Case Study of Loveland Ready Mix Concrete and Sysdyne Technologies – Why Moving to the Cloud was an Easy Choice
Loveland Ready Mix Concrete is a family-owned and operated company with four dry batch plants and working on a fifth, and has been serving the Northern Colorado Front Range since 1955. As a company they pride themselves in their stellar customer service and specialize in hard-to-reach mountain jobs. Their main customer base is residential construction with occasional commercial jobs. In 2012, Loveland Ready Mix made the environmentally-conscious decision to start transform their mixer truck fleet, of about 60 trucks, to clean Colorado-sourced natural gas. As of 2020 about 80% of their entire fleet is natural gas fueled.
Why did Loveland Ready Mix choose to move ahead with Cloud technology for their Dispatch and Delivery management?
We made the choice to move to cloud dispatch for several reasons. We first encountered Sysdyne at the World of Concrete convention in Las Vegas. At their booth we posed a question to the President Jill Zhang about working out an integration to auto calculate tax zones based on address. We had posed this same question to other dispatch software providers and had gotten the same answer from all of them; “No sorry.” However, Jill, after just a few minutes of conversation with her software engineers turned and said “Sure, we can do that.” That one conversation spurred our interest in switching to ConcreteGO and Pioneer batch. After looking at what all Sysdyne had to offer several more reasons to switch became apparent. One, we could rid ourselves of the cumbersome servers and equipment we were having to constantly update and maintain with our other provider. Two, we could access our dispatch software from anywhere at any time with just an internet connection, as a company that is spread throughout the Front Range this had a significant impact. Three, we could begin working WITH a software company instead of just using another company’s software.
After several good years of using ConcreteGO and Pioneer batch at all of our plants, we made the decision to go ahead with the integration of the iStrada paperless ticketing system in 2018. Since that time, and a pretty seamless integration, we have been 100% paper free. This decision was made because of the time saving features iStrada provides. We, and our customers, no longer have to spend time sorting and tracking down paper batch tickets. Our drivers get to the job quicker and more efficiently because of the GPS mapping and our dispatch can make more educated decisions on loading and truck selection because of the truck tracking features.
What has been your experience working with the cloud, what have been some of the value and benefits?
Since starting with ConcreteGO we have seen the benefit in all areas of the company. Our plants are more integrated and are working more efficiently. Being able to have all our dispatchers able to see all plant schedules and truck demand has made our customer scheduling and truck planning significantly more efficient and cohesive. The integration of Pioneer batch has made our plants run better and produce a more consistent higher quality product. Being able to access ConcreteGO from anywhere has made our company more cohesive in general. Quality Control is able to have a better idea of the breakdown and reoccurrence of specific mixes going out on any given day, thus allowing them to better control concrete and aggregate quality. Our office can be more efficient with billing because they are not having to wait to collect tickets from remote plants to begin the billing process.
After the implementation of iStrada the benefits have still increased. iStrada has allowed us to have better communication with our customers and our drivers. No longer are we having to make educated “guesses” about where our trucks are and when they will be back at the plant to get loaded again. The real time truck tracking has been a serious benefit in our planning efficiency. Being able to allow customers access to their own iStrada portal cuts down on “where is my truck at?”, “what mix did I order?” and other time wasting calls to our dispatch. It has also saved the office copious amounts of time in not having to track down, sort and bill from paper tickets. Same for the offices of our customers, the tickets come straight to the inbox of their choice and are not left crumpled on a foreman’s pickup dash.
Overall, the benefit of cloud based technology is seen and realized almost immediately after start up. It’s more affordable, easier to use, easier to maintain and more cohesive than other non-cloud based concrete technology out there.
Where do you see the future of technology in Ready Mix, is using Cloud Batch a potential option?
In my opinion, cloud batch is 100% the way of the future. As technology in general continues to advance so will technologies in our industry. Companies will begin to see the benefit of other cloud based technologies and cloud batch will just be the natural progression. People want to be able to access information at any time and from anywhere, why should concrete batch software be any different.
What has been your experience working with Sysdyne as a whole?
Sysdyne as a company is one of the main reasons that switching to cloud based technology has been so easy and so immediately beneficial. Their products are easily operated with user-friendly UI that integrates seamlessly with an already established company structure.
By far the biggest benefit of working with Sysdyne has been their amazing customer service. Whether you have a simple question or a giant issue there is always someone available within minutes to help you. They are a small enough company to know my dispatchers by name yet big enough to be able to get things done. Being able to go to a software company and propose changes and improvements and have them go “Yes, we can do that.” is huge. The feeling of being able to work with your software provider is, in my opinion, a great quality for a company in that industry to have.
