Large Equipment into the App

Digital inventory is advancing all the time. STRABAG has launched pioneering applications that make inventories transparent and comparable and thus reduce costs. We present two examples from Chile and Vienna.

Santiago, Chile

A group led by Julio Aris, Machinery Commercial Manager at ZÜBLIN Chile, has developed an app for the nationwide inventory of construction machinery and stock. It meets three basic requirements: The continuous supply of new data; a filter function to simplify information processing and the creation of a data standard. The app integrates all three conditions by bringing together data from different sources using Power BI, a tool available to the entire STRABAG Group.

In a country like Chile – where the warehouses are scattered over several locations in a north-south extension of more than 1,700 km – the application that Julio Aris presents on his laptop screen with obvious pride is of particular value. A colourful matrix of diagrams and tables can be seen – what information is prepared here, Mr Julio Aris?
Julio Aris: Here you can find every single construction vehicle that is or was active on a construction site for ZÜBLIN in Chile. With just a few clicks there is further data on each vehicle, such as purchase or rental price, hours of use, maintenance intervals or repairs already carried out and ongoing.

How do you use this data?
We can see how much a construction machine costs us per hour of use, which machines are currently available or which models have the least downtime; there is also a list of all subcontractors, repairs, spare parts and much more. This is information that really helps us make good decisions.

How far is the app in use in Chile?
With the new inventory app ZÜBLIN Chile monitors all stocks and machines at its five locations in Chile, some of which are quite distant from the others. Orders and consumption can be compared, and it is possible to see which products are in demand and which are not. This information also leads to better decisions in the partner departments.

At a glance – the digital inventory platform from ZÜBLIN Chile lists all the machines and equipment, including data on their acquisition and use.

Statements from other users and developers:

“Power BI allows us to collect new data and turn it into knowledge.Our app also helps improve maintenance intervals and compare which machines are better in terms of durability or quality.“

Waldo Gauna, Head of Corporate Machinery, ZÜBLIN Chile

“The remarkable thing behind these fascinating possibilities is the fact that all the data that is analysed and evaluated here has always been available. It was stored in the group-wide Enterprise Resource Planning system, EAM, or in other software such as Excel, Dropbox or SharePoint; all we did was put it all together in one place and make it visible and comparable. Our colleagues from procurement can see the historical and current inventories, which means they can work with a better and more cost-efficient purchasing strategy. Since integrating inventory into the EAM system, procurement has realised that some components have been in stock for far too long, tying up resources. We also analyse diesel and water stocks and even buy internally from our own warehouses to avoid unused stock piling up somewhere.“

Peter Jorquera, Commercial manager of the El Teniente project

“With the inventory app a true internal market has been created, which also reduces costs. Currently more than 2,000 products can be called up in the system. Imagine what would be possible if we had all of the global assets of the entire group in one system.“

Bernd Müller, Corporate IT Manager at STRABAG in Chile

Vienna, Austria

Construction site underground tunnel at Matzleinsdorfer Platz in Vienna – Katarina Džeko, technical employee of the development team, starts the digital takeover of a construction vehicle. In front of her is an excavator, in the background other construction vehicles are in use. Katarina Džeko holds a tablet up to a type plate on the excavator, input fields appear on the display. Helmut Klammer, machine superintendent at UB3I International and Tunnelling in Vienna, sits in the vehicle and reads the operating data on the instruments, which Džeko transfers to her tablet.

The digital equipment management app EAM4Site used here runs on the basis of the “Workshop 4.0” software. EAM4site aims to manage the inventory of internal and external equipment on construction sites more transparently by means of digitalisation. As early as 2018, the foundation stone for a total of six digitalisation topics was laid in the then UB2I Tunnelling with an internally assembled group of experts from various areas under the synonym “BeDigi”. The need for personnel- and cost-intensive workshop operations on complex tunnel construction sites was obvious, was further deepened and work was done not only on suitable software, but also on optimising the takeover and repair processes.

Katarina Džeko starts the digital takeover of a construction vehicle at the underground tunnel construction site at Matzleinsdorfer Platz in Vienna.

In response to this initiative, after a year of evaluation, Tunnel Construction began developing a web-based system with an accompanying app based on Microsoft Dynamics. “The system records the entire life cycle of a piece of equipment, from its purchase to its return or departure from the company,” explains Katarina Džeko. Until now, this has been documented manually on construction sites.

See here the application of the app in a test run on the underground tunnel construction site at Matzleinsdorfer Platz in Vienna. (German only)