Boral brings truck route optimisation to its concrete operations

Boral is rolling out a digital system in its concrete business that is designed to improve on-time delivery to customers, and adjust schedules in real-time if an earlier “pour” runs over time.

Image credit: Boral

The company revealed the project, called Auto Allocations, in its annual report [pdf], characterising it as a way “to ensure concrete on-time delivery performance meets customer expectations”.

The system is designed to connect up the end-to-end process chain, and then uses an algorithm “to recommend the best transport schedule, taking into consideration customer service and transport efficiency”.

“Auto Allocations digitises the process chain, connecting trucks, products, plants and customer information to create a single source of consolidated data,” the company said.

“The system’s pre-planning capability provides the contact centre, operations and sales teams with a shared view of the advanced schedule.

“The visualisation tool allows collective decision-making, helping achieve the best balance between customer experience and transport efficiency”.

Importantly, however, Auto Allocations is designed to adjust schedules - and inform customers - of any change to the time a concrete truck is meant to arrive onsite.

In the age of digital twins on construction sites, this kind of capability is increasingly becoming a requirement of customers, who want early warning of anything that might affect the schedule of works, since a delay in one area has flow-on impacts for others.

“Boral Auto Allocations recalibrates the schedule in real-time when a change occurs; for example, when a pour runs over time or there are traffic hazards on the road,” the company said.

So far, the system has been rolled out to Boral’s metropolitan concrete plants in Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia.

Deployment to its metropolitan NSW operations is “scheduled for FY24” - this financial year.

Boral said that the early results are good, and that “further improvement is expected as we continue to roll out the program”.

The company did not say what technology that Auto Allocations is based on, describing it only as “world-class transport technology”.

iTnews has contacted a Boral spokesperson for comment.

For FY23, Boral reported a 17 percent increase in revenue to $3.46 billion, and an underlying net profit after tax (NPAT) of $142.7 million, up 304 percent on the year prior.