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The rewards of managing a growing business are obvious. For concrete producers, two areas where management challenges arise with growth are efficiency and safety. Perhaps nowhere is the challenge of achieving the optimal balance between these two ideals more obvious than in preventing mixer truck rollovers.

Every ready-mix producer has heard stories about, or even worse, been involved in, this type of mishap. But it often takes research to drive home the point that driving a mixer truck is one of the industry's most dangerous tasks. A recent NRMCA survey of 36 members showed that they averaged about three mixer truck rollovers in a little more than a year. Such information certainly can cause the producer to act.

But the power of information can solve problems as well as bring them to light. Solving the rollover problem is so important, that an information system dedicated to the issue has emerged within the past year after many years of research and development.

On the cutting edge

Al Benjamin, operations manager for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Maricopa Ready Mix LLC, and his employer were on the cutting edge of R&D for the system a few years ago. One of the first ready-mix suppliers in the country to adopt an Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system, Maricopa was approached by Trimble Navigation Ltd., which was seeking help from producers on product development.

Trimble had acquired a company in nearby Chandler and formed a division called Trimble Information Services. "We were the only ones in the valley with AVL," says Benjamin. The company runs a growing operation of five plants and 91 trucks.

After assisting in product testing, Maricopa also became one of the first suppliers in the industry to adopt the DriveSafe system. The company used the system last year and began running regular reports by the fourth quarter. Benjamin and other producers believe the system is a powerful management information tool, as well as an employee empowerment tool, because it documents driver efficiency and safety in a way that has never been attempted before.

The system, consisting of Trimble Navigation's DriveSafe application and its TrimView ready-mix platform, addresses efficiency and safety simultaneously as it measures driver efficiency while helping the producer manage safety exceptions. The producer can use the combined data to bring drivers to the apex: efficiency and safety.

# posted by Medical Information : 5:57 AM