Holcim Services (South Asia) Limited to Deploy Trimble's Fleet Management and Visual Cargo Solutions to Improve Cement Distribution Logistics

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Dec. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Trimble (NASDAQ:TRMB) announced today that Holcim Services (South Asia) Limited, a unit of Holcim Group, one of the largest global cement manufacturers, will deploy the Trimble® trako Fleet Management and Visual Cargo solutions in their outbound logistics fleet that transports cement to various destinations across India. The Trimble solution will provide Holcim better visibility into its transport logistics operations to help increase fleet productivity, improve operational efficiencies, enhance fleet and driver safety, and meet tight delivery timelines.

As part of the implementation, Trimble will provide the Visual Cargo solution to Holcim's ACC Limited and Ambuja Cements Limited plant operations and the GPS/GPRS based Fleet Management solution for use by their contracted transport vendors. Visual Cargo provides advanced dashboard and reporting features that allow logistics managers to easily monitor, track and manage delivery exceptions. The Fleet Management solution will provide online tools for transport vendors to manage their fleet utilization and driver safety.

"One of the major challenges for the Indian cement industry is to effectively manage logistics and distribution in a highly competitive, high-volume market over a large geography. Across our extensive network of cement plants, we engage a large, dedicated fleet to transport cement products to our customers across India. The effective use of GPS and related technologies to provide efficiencies in the logistics operations can have a direct positive impact on distribution costs and customer satisfaction. We chose Trimble's cutting-edge solutions to rapidly achieve our goals and further advance ACC and Holcim's leadership position in the cement industry," said Kuldip Kaura, CEO and managing director, ACC Limited.

"The Indian cement industry is a high-growth market and customer satisfaction is a high priority for cement manufacturers. At times, logistics costs may exceed manufacturing costs. All our cement plants deploy state-of-the-art solutions such as those offered by Trimble to create the highest efficiencies across our entire supply-chain. These mission-critical applications can enable Ambuja and Holcim to enhance our leadership positions," said Onne Van Der Weijde, managing director of Ambuja Cements Limited.

Sunil Tewari, CEO, Holcim Services, (South Asia) Limited commented, "Being a pioneer in the cement industry globally, our goal is to leverage and integrate innovative technologies such as GPS, RFID and Cloud computing to obtain a higher level of visibility into our enterprise supply chain. These technologies will allow us to create an enterprise framework to build a network operating center that seamlessly integrates logistics and business operations to deliver sustained productivity, visibility and safety improvements. We chose Trimble because of its proven expertise in successfully deploying large-scale Transportation & Logistics solutions and its ability to collaborate as a long-term partner."

"Transportation and logistics in India is a fast-growing, complex market with fragmented ownership of vehicles. Shippers are dependent on multiple transporters to deliver goods. This complexity triggered us to tailor an enterprise-class Fleet Management solution for transporters combined with the Visual Cargo solution to shippers. Its innovative access control mechanism offers trip-based visibility, alerting and reporting to relevant stakeholders across the supply chain," said Rajan Aiyer, Trimble's managing director for India. "We are excited to be working with Holcim, ACC and Ambuja on such a challenging project and look forward to a long-term relationship. We are confident that Trimble's solution can bring Holcim increased visibility and improved fleet management in the dynamic cement distribution market."

About Holcim

Founded in Switzerland in 1912, Holcim is one of the world's leading suppliers of cement and aggregates (crushed stone, sand and gravel). Holcim also supplies ready-mix concrete and asphalt, and provides related services.

Holcim is a global company employing over 80,000 people, with production sites in more than 70 countries. Holcim acquired significant positions in ACC Limited and Ambuja Cements Limited to obtain a strong foothold in the fast-growing South Asian cement market. For more information, visit:  www.holcim.com.

About ACC Limited

Established in 1936, ACC Limited is India's foremost cement manufacturer with a countrywide network of 17 modern cement factories, 50 ready mix concrete plants and numerous sales offices. It is among the largest customers of Indian Railways and a considerable user of the country's road transport network services for inward and outward movement of materials and products. Recognized for its unique track record of innovative research and product development, ACC's pioneering efforts in launching commercial distribution of Bulk cement and Ready Mix Concrete in India were responsible for redefining the pace and quality of construction activity in the country's cities and mega infrastructure projects. Recently the company commissioned one of the world's largest plants in Wadi, Karnataka, India. ACC is a preferred cement brand name in India. For more information, visit: www.acclimited.com.

About Ambuja Cements Limited

Ambuja Cements Limited (ACL), initially called Gujarat Ambuja Cements Limited., was founded in 1983 and commenced cement production in 1986. Holcim acquired management control of ACL in 2006. ACL has grown dynamically over the past decade. The Company has five integrated cement manufacturing plants and eight cement grinding units across the country. ACL enjoys a reputation of being one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly cement manufacturers in the world. ACL is the first Indian cement manufacturers to build a captive port with three terminals along the country's western coastline to facilitate timely, cost effective and environmentally cleaner shipments of bulk cement to its customers. The Company has its own fleet of ships. For more information, visit: www.ambujacement.com.

About Trimble's trako Visual Cargo Solution

Trimble's trako Visual Cargo is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that provides on-demand visibility—from loading to delivery location—of cargo vehicles using Trimble GPS devices. It is a single, common platform for supply chain stake holders, which include consigners, consignees, transporters and vehicle owners, to track and manage the movement of goods in transit to enhance operational efficiency and improve customer service.

Leading enterprise customers with nationwide transportation & logistics operations in industries such as auto manufacturing, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), hazardous materials and courier services have successfully implemented Trimble's solution and derived significant operational efficiencies.

For more information, visit: Trimble trako Visual Cargo.  

More information on Trimble Transport & Logistics Solution for India visit:  www.trimbletl.in.

About Trimble

Trimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or location—including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling of the field and the back office. Founded in 1978, Trimble is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

For more information, visit:  www.trimble.com.

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SOURCE Trimble