Drone-based aerial intelligence solution provider Kespry announced BARD Materials is using the Kespry platform for inventory management and mine planning. BARD Materials is a leading ready mix concrete and aggregates company in the Illinois-Iowa-Wisconsin tri-state area. It has a network of 24-plus ready mix plants and 60 aggregate sources across the region.
“Our industry as a whole has a problem with accurately measuring how much aggregate product is actually being produced,” said Eric Glendenning, technical services director, BARD Materials. “Belt scales and other technologies have calibration issues. A lot of times, a manual visual analysis doesn’t reflect the actual inventory. We needed a better way to validate what we had.”
Once BARD Materials implemented Kespry, it was able to create an optimal balance between demand signals, inventory and production.
“We’ve got 60 quarry and sand pit locations where we used to send someone once a week to in order to get a visual to validate inventory,” said Glendenning. “Now, with Kespry, we can put one person in a pickup truck who just regularly flies those sites when necessary and gets good, accurate information. From there, we can make good decisions on where to send dump trucks, so we’re not showing up in a location where we have no current inventory. We like our dump trucks to be full and Kespry helps us ensure they are.”
The Kespry Cloud, which enables organizations to upload, analyze and share critical inventory management and mine planning information across regions, sites and teams, also plays a critical role in boosting productivity for BARD Materials.
“We’ve got the Kespry Cloud set up for people to view information as needed,” said Glendenning. “If our environmental team knows we’re flying locations, rather than them calling the drone operator, they can just pop onto the Kespry Cloud and see when a site was flown and the data captured about it. They don’t need to make any phone calls or track anyone down. The Kespry Cloud is also accurate. It can’t be manipulated. It can’t be misinterpreted. There’s no such thing as incorrect. That’s great for everyone from the front office to the back office. Building that confidence into our numbers is pretty significant.”
“BARD Materials is a great example of how Kespry delivers dependable, business-critical data that enables aggregates operations to precisely focus on production that’s calibrated to customer requirements,” said George Mathew, CEO, Kespry. “Kespry seamlessly integrates into the largest inventory management and mine planning workflows, creating the most reliable and transparent views into pit and quarry operations possible.”
Kespry also enables BARD Materials to adhere to social distancing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With Kespry, one person is able to manage the whole system, upload the information, pull the reports, validate the information, and send it all out,” said Glendenning. “Right now, the fewer people you can involve in processes the better. So, Kespry has made things super smooth, even during this difficult time.”