Industry 4.0 begins with product standardization

Precast concrete plants benefit from a scalable IT landscape. But before they can take that step, they will need to think about product standardization. Speaking is Heico Heuver, director of Matrix Software. "Everyone talks about smart industry or industry 4.0, but few parties really take the bull by the horns."

Matrix Software has a complete proposition for precast concrete floor and wall systems: from ERP and factory logistics to CAD/CAM and structural analysis. "Companies in the process of replacing outdated software often see a return to the past," notes Heuver. "As a result, substantial investments are made in solutions to support existing business processes. This regularly degenerates into disappointment because it leads to a solution that is anything but modern, scalable and flexible. You're basically just building custom solutions again. A copy of the outdated system, but in a modern guise." 

Automation, according to Heuver, starts with product standardization. "And that means re-educating the product assortment and sales in the first place," he advises. "The sales department will have to entice buyers to purchase as many standard products as possible instead of specials. A production environment founded on exceptions is one of the main reasons many parties get stuck when redesigning the IT landscape. Once there is product standardization, we are able to create a flexible and scalable IT landscape built on commodities. In other words, standard components that are easy to replace. It makes a company much more agile and future-proof than opting for one large customized environment, as was common in the concrete industry in the past." 

"Matrix Software can fulfill all commodities within a scalable IT landscape, where for finance we have partnerships with leading financial software vendors," said Heuver. He clarifies, "MatrixProject is our ERP solution, Impact Production focuses on plant planning, bag field and logistics, MatrixLigger is for the structural calculation of all precast floor types and IC-Prefab is the CAD/CAM environment for realizing a digital twin. Finally, with the app Impact GO we retrieve all information from the shop floor via mobile devices and also send the necessary information back. All these commodities speak the same language and exchange information with each other for maximum grip and control. The commodities are also interchangeable, resulting in a highly flexible IT landscape." 

Matrix Software is using 2023 to convince the market to commit to a scalable IT architecture. "One of our two founders recently retired and transferred his shares to Civenso Group, a Norwegian/Swedish investment company with several construction software players in its portfolio. This allows us to introduce Impact Production and Impact GO to the Dutch market. Coupled with MatrixProject, MatrixLigger and IC-Prefab, it completes our proposition for precast concrete plants."