Building material logistics: Factory, material and construction site in sync
The order is: 24 tons of material to the construction site by 10:30 a.m. This raises several questions for the building material logistics team: Which plant will the material be loaded from? Is it available there? Which vehicle is suitable for the delivery? And how does this order fit into the rest of the day's schedule?
Material and transport planning for gravel, sand, concrete, excavated material, and recycled building materials are closely intertwined. Multiple plants, different vehicle types, and changing construction site schedules further increase the number of dependencies.
Material availability determines the possible loading location.
A transport order can only be meaningfully planned once it's clear where the required material is available. If there are multiple plants, distance, inventory levels, loading time, and other planned deliveries must also be considered.
Therefore, a simple vehicle overview is insufficient for scheduling. Material inventory and plant information must be factored into the planning to ensure that an order is not assigned to a vehicle before the appropriate loading location has been determined.
Which factory supplies which construction site?
Two plants can supply the same material and still lead to different transport chains. A closer plant might shorten the journey, while another might better fit a vehicle's existing daily schedule.
In addition, there are construction sites with fixed delivery windows. If a delivery is delayed, the sequence of subsequent deliveries may also change. These kinds of short-term changes are precisely what the operational target profile of building material logistics aims to achieve.
Combine vehicle type and delivery requirement
Not every vehicle is suitable for every delivery. Tippers, concrete mixers, silo trucks, and other specialized vehicles offer different applications. The type of material, site access, and required quantity all influence the choice.
A digital dispatching solution can link these criteria directly to the order. The dispatcher sees material, plant, vehicle type, driver, construction site, and time window in a single plan and doesn't have to gather the information from separate systems or lists.
Continuously replanning building material logistics
During the day, other factors come into play: a vehicle is delayed, a construction site changes its time window, or a factory reports a change in material supply.
When transport and material data are managed together, such changes can be applied more quickly to subsequent orders. Key factors for management include punctuality rate, waiting time per order, vehicle utilization, and dispatching effort.
Transport planning in building material logistics thus becomes an ongoing coordination between plant, material and fleet.
Map your building material logistics together
Together we will look in a 30-minute demo, how Comitas can digitally combine materials, works, vehicles and construction site appointments in your scheduling.
