Get A Load Of This
Get A Load Of This
5: From Cameras to Autonomous Drones: The Evolution of Bulk Material Management
David Boardman, the Founder & CEO of Stockpile Reports, knows that the foundation of automation and optimization is good data and asset management. He is helping material producers build the foundation - with cameras.
Managing bulk materials is a challenge but the latest technology is giving today's material producers an edge. David discusses the innovative ways his company leverages cameras and drones to provide up-to-the-minute information about bulk materials.
Tune in to find out how technology is evolving the way material producers think about and report on their stockpiles.
Welcome to get a load of this. This is your host Elizabeth Scholz. And today we are joined by David Boardman, the founder and CEO of stockpile reports, a company that focuses on leveraging data and technology to help companies differentiate through bulk material management and tracking. We are excited to speak with David about the technology he leverages today, where he sees the industry going, and what difference up to the minute bulk material management makes for his customers. So let's get started.
Speaker 2:All right. So we're here today with David Boardman and David, I would love for you to give a short introduction about who you are and you know, what stockpile reports is doing for the industry.
Speaker 3:Sure. My name is David Boardman, I'm founder and CEO of stockpile reports. Uh, also you'll see associated my name, every point, uh, at our core we're a computer vision company. Um, we had a business even before this doing large scale rapid mapping. And about just about 10 years ago, started to look at computer vision technologies and say, what problems could we solve in the commercial marketplace? And, uh, after a lot of really interesting, exciting problems we explored, we ended up with bulk materials management, uh, learned from a company called knife river and meeting with the president of Northwest region. Brian Gray shared a man keeping track of materials as hard. And I had no idea. I'd never worn a hard hat, never worn steel-toed boots. I'd always been, uh, advanced technology guy selling to people in shiny buildings. So to get out there and learn about this problem of how hard it is to make bulk materials and move bulk materials and truck bulk materials and consume bulk materials and keep track of it, man, that's a massive problem. So honed in on that problem back in about 2012 and I've been going at it ever since our vision is allowing customers to get great data on every single stock, no matter where it is in their business operations at any time. And so there's lots of innovations still to go to make that vision a reality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think the idea of asset management and asset tracking has really become such a key focal point in the news when it comes to the construction industry lately. And that's kind of exactly your wheelhouse. What are some of the foundations that you think have kept your business so strong since you began it back? You know what, how many years ago now? Almost 10 in 2013. That's right. Yeah. So what's kept it so strong. And what are some of the ways that you've maybe expanded your portfolio over the course of, uh, pain,
Speaker 3:Pain and problems in the industry? I mean, um, you know, so much has happened for asset management, right? With the invention of the barcode, right. And being able to barcode and then being able to use RFID, you know, it was another big technology that came along. Right. And so there's been a lot of optimization, a lot of process improvement in the world of fixed app, you know, boxed materials, things that you could slap up barcode on, uh, but bulk materials. And when it's just piles of stuff, you can't stick a barcode on a rock. I mean, I guess you could, but you'd have to be honest, it'd be hard to read. Right? So the challenge is all of those processes and all the software technology, everything that's helped people improve the supply chain across, you know, more things that come in boxes, um, that has yet to be done in the world of bulk materials. Right. So it's really just getting started. So there is a lot of struggle, a lot of pain, a lot of waste, a lot of frustration, um, that goes on because it's just really hard to keep track of all this stuff. So when we started allowing people to quantify assets, quantify materials, you know, stockpiles through imagery, very low cost, just pull your phone out of your pocket Palm or purse, right. Or buy one of these cool drones that are like six or$700 now, right. Or now install some cameras. Right. And you're seeing how cheap installed cameras are getting. Right. And now that you can start to look to see what material has been dropped off, right. And plug that data into software in the supply chain. Um, it's a big opportunity. So we're really just getting started on that journey. People started with trying to avoid write-offs, you know, the annual counts they'd have to do on inventories, but now over the last three years, I'd say the shift and the poll has been in the supply chain.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah. You bring up a couple of really great points there that I'd love to dive a little bit deeper into one of them being, I think one of the things we've noticed in our business too, is that the pressure from the end customers has continued to grow over the course of time. You know, they get used to companies like Amazon and dominoes that are willing to give up to the minute updates and we see that on the logistics side of things, but I'm sure you see that on the asset management side of things as well. I was wondering if you could touch on how that really comes into play for you and your interactions with customers that are interested in coming on board, if you're seeing that trend as well. If that's one of the things kind of driving the needle here is getting more, more up to the minute information for that end customer.
Speaker 3:Yes. The answer is yes. But again, I think we're just barely getting started, barely getting started because companies are just getting used to the fact that they can have a decent perpetual inventory in bulk materials. Right? Because historically the error in bulk materials could be 15, 20, 20, 5, 30 there's even some businesses where perpetual inventory is 40% off. Right. And so where that surface is itself is not being able to do your Amazon or your Domino's pizza model is you don't know what you got. Right. And there are salespeople that I've talked to for bulk materials who say they won't, they won't sell like a short term deal if they don't get in their own truck and drive over and see if the material's really there, because they just don't trust the data in their systems. And so to start to introduce any sort of automation, you've got to have good data, right? And so companies are just starting to celebrate the fact that they can get good data, right. To get their perpetual inventories, to where they're confident to maybe within five or seven or 8%, which still sounds crazy. If you were dealing with boxes of the television sets, you wouldn't accept that. Right. But with bulk materials, that's a huge accomplishment to get to that number. And now that they're starting to get to that number, now they're starting to introduce more and more automation. And then when you have that automation, then you can start to do things like optimizing your supply chain and giving customers great experiences. Um, well, for example, some customers are starting experiment with vendor managed inventory models. Um, first customer we worked with on that with salt, cause they have the challenge that nobody ever orders salt until it's three days before the storm, it's a logistical nightmare. Right. But now if you can start to do like Amazon does and say, Hey, order your D batteries. If you set them up for auto delivery, every three months, we'll give you 5% off those batteries. Right. So why can't we do the same thing with bulk materials, right? Um, could be salt, you know, that, that you leave that delivery responsibility to the provider of the material and then they can smooth out the supply chain. And so then you can start to create those Amazon like experiences that people know when they order their batteries for their house. But why can't I order my salt that way? Right. I can't, I order my rock for my ready-mix plant that way.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. One of the ways I think about it too, is making data actionable. And so, you know, it's great to have millions, billions lines and rows of data, but how do you take that data? And then turn it into something that a sales team can use. How do you turn it into something that, you know, the operations side of the business can use? How does your company approach that and how should material producers that are thinking about, you know, moving from manual processes to bringing in a new piece of technology to help them, how should they think about that?
Speaker 3:Well, it it's, it's a journey for sure. Right? And you can, you can look to the world of, you know, boxed materials and how supply chain management, you know, evolved and matured for things in boxes, right? It didn't just happen overnight that you can implement an Amazon prime, right. It took 50 years, right. Of being able to understand those assets, to location of those assets, right. Start to have good fleet management software, right. And then start to have optimization engines, right. They come in and understand those assets, understand the delivery capacity, understand the demand of the customer and start to position your supply chain, ready to act. Right. So that's not just going to happen overnight. That's going to take 15, 20, more years. Um, our company's role, uh, I'm a huge believer in focus, anybody who's met with me and worked with me, it's always about focus, right? Uh, what do we do to win, uh, with our customers and how do we accomplish that? And we know our world is being, uh, the software platform for giving great information on every pile anytime that's it. So when we go talk to customers about supply chain management, well, it's, it's knowing from our relationships within our customers in the marketplace, what's happening, right? You don't just need good data on your stockpiles. You need to have good fleet management, you need to have good optimization software. There's a whole set of boxes on a chart that needed to be filled in, right in order to start to implement some of these models. So I think, you know, a foundational step is what we do at stockpile reports is if, if, if you don't know your assets and you don't confidently know where your assets are and how much of it you have, you can't begin to start to automate and optimize because suddenly trucks are going to show up someplace expecting to load any material there. And then, and then you just totally blew it. Or you're going to say, Hey, I need to send a load over to the bridge project. And then you realize, well, wait a minute, they already have more material than they need. And they're wrapping up tomorrow. And there's still some material on the ground that was just a wasted trip. Right. So you've got that really good data. You can't start to do those, you know, really automated, uh, dispatch, automated delivery, or even in, get up way up into the optimization world until you've got really good data that you can trust.
Speaker 2:Yep. I totally agree with you having that as the foundation. And then you can build on top of that, you know, these are people I'm assuming a lot of your clients are, are also in the heavy civil construction industry. They're in, in bulk materials. They get, you got to start with the right foundation before you can build on top of it and, you know, getting a tool in place like yours. I mean, it must save so much time. I mean, when you think about how people without a tool like yours are managing their bulk materials, I would imagine that's a lot of one manual measuring, counting a lot of eyeballing things. Somebody who's been there for quite a while, looking at a pile and does balling that's. Right. Yeah. So, you know, imagine, you know, you're young, you're new, you're in the industry and you're like, yeah, how do I, how do I measure that guy who's been there for 20 years is just going to probably have that math in his head after having done it for so much time. Um, and hope that his estimate is pretty accurate.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It is. It is hoping heroes as what we say open heroes, right? I mean, these companies, it is absolutely amazing what they do and how they pull it off and we call it the spreadsheet rodeo. Right. Because the reality is you've got from where you're extracting bulk materials or maybe recycling it right to how you're going to transport it across rail barge or ship. Right. So then how you're going to get it to an end placement site, whether, you know, a job site, like it's a civil construction site, it's our ready-mix plant it's assault, shed, whatever it is right now, every step of that process is phone calls for the most part. Right. And even if it's an automated system in place, I guarantee you, there's still a phone call behind the scenes, right? Yeah. Because people don't trust, they know that the data isn't there. And so they say, Hey, before we load these five train cars to come up to your distribution yard, are you sure you have space for five cars to unload? And they do that check call. They do the same thing for shipping. Hey, you know how much quarter-inch rock do you think you can take? Right? And then, because we're going to load up a ship and we want to stop at these three ports along the coast. Right. And those are all phone calls, all phone calls and spreadsheets and whiteboards. It is absolutely amazing that book, but to get to where they need to be open heroes,
Speaker 2:It really is when you are kind of setting expectations with a new customer that you're working with, what are kind of the reasonable things to assume are going to be automated. And what are some of the things that more likely than not are still going to have some sort of manual component to them?
Speaker 3:Well, if, if the goal is on the supply chain side, since that's the theme we're riffing on, right. There's different parts to it. Part of it is understanding your assets that you're moving, right. Which is typically the bulk materials. Part of it is understanding your assets that you have to move the material, whether that's the actual trucks or it's the front loaders, feeding trucks, or it's a stacker that has to fill a location, right. Or it's a boat that needs to sail or a barge that needs to go down river. Right. So it's really understanding, you know, what those things are and where they are. Right. So you have to get it. Companies have to get a handle on that. And there's still companies that are still struggling with that to a degree, but, but moving forward, it's going to take them awhile. Right. And then, and then at the end of the day, it's, it's, it's commitment and it's it's business change, right? So you gotta get those assets managed. You have to have a vision for where you want to go with your supply chain and then what technology accomplishments you need to, you need to score right. In order to get going forward. Because most it's still a long journey. They're just putting those point solutions in place achieving their incremental cost improvement. But they still have a long way to go to, uh, you know, matching Amazon or pizza delivery, but absolutely they're working on it.
Speaker 2:Hey, and you're helping them. Um, one of the things I saw recently in the news was that you have announced a partnership with American robotics. Um, can you talk a little bit more about that and what the goal of that partnership is?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Um, every pile, any time, right. I want, I want to be able to help companies manage every pile they have on the planet and it needs to be so cost-effective and so fresh, right. That it's like you said, and you know, we started with humans walking around with cameras or phones, taking pictures of stuff, and then drones became legal and then people could go out and fly a drone over something. Right. But you still have humans involved. Right. And that's great. And it's especially great for valuing your assets. Um, but when you're doing supply chain, you need it. You need to know by the minute, right. Or by the hour or, or, or by the 30 minutes, what's the state of your assets. And you can't do that with humans. It has to be automated. So I did some interviews a couple of years ago, and I talked about 2020 being the rise of the machines. Well, I think, you know, COVID came and kind of slowed a lot of that down, but it really is about getting humans out of the loop, uh, of this asset county. And we started with installed cameras, really looking at the supply chain use case for vendor managed inventory and installed cameras are great, especially for things like salt sheds, right. Or a ready-mix plant or something like that. But if you've got a site that's got lots of assets distributed over a large geography to get all those cameras out there, it starts to get expensive. It starts to get a pain. Right. Uh, as much as we'd like to think cameras are stable. There's always a front loader driver who decides, you know, to back up and bump into it or something. So there's, there's maintenance involved too. So we always had the vision for autonomous drones and the industry has been selling the vision of autonomous drones for many years now. And there's lots of money flowing into the space. And there's lots of announcements of companies saying they do it. Right. But the reality is I've been trying to buy autonomous drones for two years now and, uh, I'd call people and they'd say, oh yeah, we're going to do that. And I'd say, great, I'll take a hundred. And then suddenly I get a list of reasons of why it's going to be another two years before they can sell me a hundred. Well, finally, um, I connected with American robotics and they had received approval from the FAA to do some deployments. And when I called them and say, I'd like to buy a hundred, right. It wasn't a, oh, we can't do that. It was great. Let's get started. And so we've worked over the last, it's probably been four or five months to deeply integrate our products. So now stockpile reports customers. If they have a site where they need data every hour on stockpiles, they can configure that in our portal, we can deploy one of the units. We can click a button and schedule and say, we need data every hour. And then it just happens with no humans involved, right? So autonomous drones are super important. Installed cameras are super important. Eventually it's going to be imagery from cameras on the front loaders and trucks themselves that are feeding into right to give us that information on all the assets visually every minute of every day. So autonomous drones are, are big. I think we're just getting started with them. I think it's going to be a real noisy industry over the next few years as the FAA regulation sort out. And it's all the investors lineup, they're different plays a lot's going to happen in autonomous drones over the next couple
Speaker 2:Of years. Absolutely. So that's something that, you know, one year your customers are seeing value from today. It's something that's going to continue to grow. It's going to continue to build in, let's say 10 years, what kind of value do you think you're going to be able to bring to your customers at that point in time? Are there things that are on the horizon that you know of now and are just going to take, you know, a little bit more time, a little bit more maturity to be able to start incorporating it into this world?
Speaker 3:Yes. So I think, I think it's going to be an evolution. Autonomous drones are just starting. I would predict within three years, autonomous drones will be the fastest growing portion of our business right now it's installed cameras. Um, I would imagine other types of cameras that move around in space, uh, are going to be big. I think, uh, as more and more truck manufacturers and equipment manufacturers are embedding cameras into their systems. Um, it's exciting what, what people are starting to put into a front loader, play that out loud as we can start to tap into that data as well, then suddenly it's going to be able to, you know, understanding your assets without deploying any hardware, because you already have these assets that are sensing the environment, whether it's through imagery or through lasers, right. That we're going to be able to tap into, to provide even more frequent data at even a lower cost. So I think we, I mean, goodness, we've got at least another 10 or 15 years of major growth and major innovation because man, there's a lot of piles on the planet and you know, nobody knows what's in those piles, uh, on a daily basis at best people will be able to tell you algorithmically once a quarter in general, but the future could be every minute of every
Speaker 2:Day. Awesome. Well, I'm glad to hear, there's like, you know, that song strong, solid runway is still ahead of us. I'm looking forward to seeing more and more come out from your company and the applications that it has in this industry are just so impactful for people that have listened to this podcast are kind of interested. You you've kind of, you know, struck a chord with them. Something you've said has resonated. What's the best way for them to reach out to your team and see if they're, you know, material production company is going to be a good fit for stockpile reports and could get value out of what you offer.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's a couple of ways trying to make it easy. First one would be, you know, just hit the website, fill out the contact form and the team gets in touch. I'm always open and excited to talk to people too. Could send me a personal email or give me a call. Whatever's easiest for folks.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, I'm really glad we've had you on the show today. Um, I know we only have a few minutes left. We do a series of rapid fire questions, right. At the end that we've been asking all of our guests. So I'm going to dive into those and then we'll let you get back to your busy schedule, but thanks so much for joining us. Um, so the first rapid fire question, um, if you could see someone else interviewed on this podcast, who would that be?
Speaker 3:Oh, I, I would love to see, uh, any CEO of any major bulk materials company. Um, I've seen enough technology, people talk, uh, you know, I think anybody who's leading the space and really transforming their supply chain. I'd love
Speaker 2:To hear that. Awesome. Um, has there been someone in this industry that has really kind of been a mentor to you as you've kind of transitioned from that technology focus to serving this bulk materials industry? Is there somebody that's helped you in that kind of learning curve over the top? Over the course of time?
Speaker 3:Oh, there's so many, it's hard to call out one. Cause again, I come to this problem as a computer scientist, but by training and a technologist by career. Uh, and so I've learned so much from so many people, but I, you know, I'd have to say in the beginning, I really appreciate the aggregates associations, especially the Washington aggregates association, um, was really helpful in setting me up with several different company executives and having breakfast and lunch and learning the industry and learning their problems was great. And then again, I mean, I wouldn't be here if it weren't Brian Gray, the president, uh, of no forever Northwest saying, Hey Dave, could you measure a stock pot with an iPhone? And I said, why, why would you want to do that? But I'd have to say, it's those folks who, you know, really took the time to share with an industry outsider, what the problems were so that we could be creative to figure out how to solve those problems.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Uh, what's keeping you in the construction industry. What keeps you excited about being here?
Speaker 3:Um, it's, it's twofold. Um, one is so much opportunity. Uh, the industry is, you know, if you look at the McKinsey reports and you think of the D you see the digitized industries, I mean, hunting and fishing is the only one below construction, right? So there's just so much opportunity, uh, from a business perspective, but I'll tell you, what's motivated me more and more over the years is really helping people who don't typically get helped with technology. Um, it sounds corny, but you know, we've helped save, busted backs and broken knees and things for walking over all of our stockpiles, trying to measure them. Um, so seeing people just be relieved that they didn't have to walk anymore and then just think of all the time saved. And then again, there's lots of people that are being asked to, to attest to the value of their inventory and they've had no good way to do it. And so they're just doing their best and they're hoping, and they're going to church and saying their prayers and doing the things that they can do. Um, so now that when we can come in and actually help somebody be more confident about their business, help somebody save some time, help people be safer. I love it because there's other industries, you just don't get that. And then constructing, you can see your technology immediately impact people's lives. And so I always tell my team, if you know, there's plenty of places, you can go put mustaches on cats and make a lot more money. Uh, but that's just not what drives us.
Speaker 2:Agreed. Um, what's the one piece of technology that you could not complete your job without?
Speaker 3:Oh goodness. That's a tough, well, I mean the piece of technology is the camera in the cameras just it's moving so fast. It's so amazing. Every year. There's so many more innovations. I don't know that everybody fully understands the camera's just been game changing for life and for business.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm glad you fully understand, even if regular folk like me, don't fully understand. Um, and finally, if there was one part of your job that you could automate, what would that be? Probably travel planning,
Speaker 3:Especially in COVID is just, it's so complex these days trying to get to everywhere. We need to be all the time. If I could automate that, I would be a much happier man.
Speaker 2:Huh. Awesome. Well again, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Um, appreciate you taking, you know, the 20, 25 minutes out of your day to do this. And we look forward to seeing much more from stockpile reports in the future.
Speaker 3:You bet. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Of course,
Speaker 1:Is that tracking and management is getting a lot of attention these days. And while it may be a hot button topic today, David has spent years thinking about this to achieve his goal of every pile. Anytime David and his team are literally willing to turn over every stone to get there, starting out with cameras, and now even leveraging autonomous drones, they're taking advantage of cutting edge technology and putting it in the hands of people that really need it. One of the best parts about being in this industry is you get to see the impact of technology in a very real way. In many industries, data is collected, but never really leveraged since David began his company, he and his team have consistently pushed the boundaries, but focus on making the data usable for teams saving time and even reducing injuries. Stockpile reports is already helping eliminate write-offs enabling vertical supply chain integration and helping to implement vendor managed inventory. But from the sounds of it, there's so much more to look forward to interested in working with David and his team, head over to stockpile reports.com and request more information. If you like what you heard today, please be sure to give us a review. This is your host Elizabeth signing off till next week.