COMMAND Alkon, a leading integrated solutions provider for the concrete industry, has built a loyal customer base with its innovative software and hardware, some of which will be showcased at The Big 5 show.

One such solution is the Commandseries integrated sytem, being installed at Bahrain-based Delmon Readymix.

Delmon Readymix, established in 1973 as Bahrain’s first readymix company, has played a major part in the construction of modern Bahrain with well over 7 million cu m of top-quality concrete produced to date.

When the company began to implement continuous process improvement methodology, it evaluated its customer-related systems and procedures and found them to be ineffective. Numerous stand-alone systems were being used to cover their business cycle from quotation to invoicing. All these required a great deal of manual effort that could lead to possible errors. And extracting information and reports to support decision-making was tedious and time-consuming.

“As a company, Delmon Readymix strives to be easy to do business with. In ‘Delmon terms’, this means easy to contact, quick to respond, minimise mistakes in invoicing, and provide products and services that meet customer expectations,” says a spokesman for Command Alkon.

So in 2010, Delmon Readymix began the process of assessing a variety of different solutions available in the industry, looking at both costs and benefits provided. “Thus entered Command Alkon and its readymix dispatch solution, Commandseries, which Delmon identified as a perfect fit for its needs, offering a complete quote-to-cash solution, including shipping, dispatch, stock control, and interfacing with its current concrete plant automation software and accounting software,” he says.

What attracted Delmon to Command Alkon was the latter’s strong track record, regular development and updating of its applications and technologies, its long-term stability as a partner, and a good presence in the Middle East. “Delmon, after all, has been one of the first companies in the Middle East to install Command Alkon’s plant automation hardware in 1990,” says the spokesman.

Furthermore, with guidance from general manager, Jon Mottram, Delmon Readymix had recently worked with Command Alkon on an upgrade of its automation system to Commandbatch, for concrete plant automation, and precision water system, for slump control and mix consistency. So Mottram was an advocate for moving towards further integration with additional Command Alkon systems.

One of the major benefits of the Commandseries implementation, says the spokesman, would be that Delmon would have only one set of customer information to maintain for its entire business process cycle, rather than having customer and contact details replicated on a number of different systems that have to be maintained and kept in sync.

“In addition, Commandperformance, Command Alkon’s business intelligence solution using IBM Cognos, easily tacks on to Commandseries to provide detailed management reporting and data analysis tools that offer a deeper understanding of the performance of your business and allow you to make daily and long-term decisions with accurate information,” he adds.

Delmon also identified that fitting GPS tracking to its fleet of transit mixers and concrete pumps at the same time as installing a dispatch/shipping system would provide additional benefits and cost savings. Being able to monitor the operation of the fleet real-time as well as reviewing historical truck utilisation would allow for fleet optimisation and improvements in customer service levels. Trimble was identified as a supplier with significant experience in this field that already interfaced with the Commandseries fleet management tool, Commandfleet.

As the implementation started, Command Alkon provided a dedicated project manager to support the implementation process and provide industry-best practice guidance. Delmon and Command Alkon worked as a team to identify gaps between the former’s requirements and the existing system functionality and agreed on development efforts to address these gaps.

One specific need – very important in the Middle East – was to enhance the software to support concrete pump placement and the methods for charging for the pumps.

Currently, Delmon and Command Alkon are expecting to have the system installation complete by the year-end. Delmon looks forward to reaping the benefits of this new integrated approach to its business operations over the next 12 months and beyond.

The Commandseries also includes Commandconcrete, a Windows-based concrete dispatching solution that provides all the standard features needed to service customers, including order entry, dynamic scheduling, ticketing, truck tracking, and reporting. The application offers a broad and in-depth set of features based on 30 years of industry exposure and inputs from industry leaders.

Commandconcrete assists concrete producers with increasing dispatch efficiency, improving truck utilisation, reducing delivery costs, and providing timely and accurate operational information to enhance decision-making. It can be configured for the central or plant dispatch model of operations for the readymix industry, whether the business is operating several trucks from one location or several hundred trucks from multiple locations. Commandconcrete seamlessly integrates with the Command Alkon back office, batching, and signalling products and other applications from other industry-recognised manufacturers to provide a consistent flow of information and business operations across your enterprise.

Command Alkon will be present at Stand 2 E90 at The Big 5 show to provide further information about its products and services.