ConcreteDirect for Holcim

Holcim is a Swiss multinational company present in over 70 countries. It is the global leader in the building materials and solutions industry.


«We brought ConcreteDirect to the market faster by following the agile development approach driven by the commitment of AdNovum.»

Sean Ali, General Manager – Digital – North America, Holcim

The project

ConcreteDirect stems from a venture of the Holcim digital team and is thought as a platform to ease the delivery of ready-mix concrete. It brings together all involved parties while building trust, transparency and digitalizing a phone and paper-based business. What started as a proof of concept with a handful of users in Boston is now live throughout North America (USA and Canada).

  • The goal: To build a platform that allows the ordering and end-to-end tracking of the delivery of concrete, thus strengthening trust between dispatchers and customers by providing full transparency and increased communication. Instead of relying on paper and several legacy systems, the capabilities of mobile devices are leveraged, and existing processes are improved.
  • The process: AdNovum has been supporting ConcreteDirect nearly since the inception of the idea and is responsible for the conception, design, development, testing, deployment and production support of the platform. Ideas are often validated in the field and refined in multiple iterations. By integrating with the batch and scheduling systems, AdNovum builds new capabilities on top of them, such as live truck tracking or in-app ordering. Thanks to various feedback and reporting tools, users’ improvement ideas and reports are directly considered by the ConcreteDirect team and allow it to maintain a high degree of satisfaction.
  • The result: A cloud native platform built on top of state-of-the-art technologies.
    • Backend: The scalable micro-services based architecture integrates with external services and serves the applications on the platform.
    • Mobile App: A native customer mobile application allows live monitoring of deliveries as well as order taking and direct communication with the dispatchers.
    • Tablet App: A native driver application collects the live location of the trucks and provides truck-specific navigation as well as digital proof of delivery and safety checks.
    • Web App: Dispatchers now have an overview of all orders at once and can easily communicate with their customers.

Technologies used:

  • Spring Boot
  • REST
  • Ruby
  • Node.js
  • AWS
  • Google Maps
  • Google Analytics
  • Kubernetes
  • Terraform
  • Kafka
  • Socket.io
  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis
  • DynamoDB
  • Swift
  • Kotlin
  • React

The benefits

Benefits for Holcim and its users:

  • Standardization of processes around the ready-mix concrete business.
  • Strengthen trust between Holcim and their customers thanks to a transparent system.
  • Providing customers with capabilities such as guided order placement and reporting empowers them and reduces the workload on internal employees.
  • More doing, less waiting: Asynchronous means of communication and paperless processes lead to increased efficiency.
  • Acquisition of business metrics that had to be computed manually in the past by extracting data from multiple systems.
  • Export/share/reporting capabilities for both Holcim employees and their customers.

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‹‹With ConcreteDirect we gain an innovative platform that unites and simplifies all processes, from ordering and tracking to the delivery of ready-mix concrete.››
Johann von Georg, Global Digital Lead RMX, Holcim

The customer

Holcim is the global leader in building materials and solutions and active in four business segments: Cement, Aggregates, Ready-Mix Concrete and Solutions & Products. It is Holcim’s ambition to lead the industry in reducing carbon emissions and accelerating the transition towards low-carbon construction. With the strongest R&D organization in the industry and by being at the forefront of innovation in building materials, the multinational seeks to constantly introduce and promote high-quality and sustainable building materials and solutions to their customers worldwide – whether they are building individual homes or major infrastructure projects. Holcim employs over 70,000 employees in over 70 countries and has a portfolio that is equally balanced between developing and mature markets.

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Links

  • Holcim: ConcreteDirect (UX)
  • ConcreteDirect by Holcim

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  • AdNovum Software Solutions

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