a look at world of concrete 2024 expo with trux!

Last month Trux sent a few of our team members out to Las Vegas to be on the show floor for the 50th World of Concrete Expo. World of Concrete is an annual event dedicated to the commercial concrete and masonry construction industries.This event is a great opportunity for attendees to see products, access resources, and share information related to concrete construction. Trux was happy to exhibit at the show this year where we met some of the industry's top companies from the United States and around the world. Here is a glimpse of what we saw and heard while we were at the World of Concrete 2024 Expo in Las Vegas.

The volume of pump trucks, dump trucks, cement mixers, and other heavy equipment was a sight to behold when first entering the expo hall. 

Education

As always, the expo offered a diverse and large number of educational opportunities for attendees ranging from technical applications, business best practices, project management, and safety-relevant topics. Of note, the educational program included approximately 50 new topics this year!

Among the new topics was an entire track of seminars devoted to Emerging Leaders with practical tips for current supervisors and up-and-coming leaders. We were particularly intrigued by seminars dedicated to employee mental health and managing and embracing a multi-generational workforce. We found these particularly interesting as we see the industry grappling with a generational shift in ownership and leadership and many businesses being passed on to the next generation. This next generation is pushing the industry to adopt new construction technologies and solutions to help grow the business while continuing to deliver excellent, reliable customer service. These new leaders realize this can't be accomplished without an infusion of new ideas and solutions, but it also won't happen without still a heavy reliance on the generation who built their companies from the ground up. And that's why the topics in the Emerging Leaders track is so timely and valuable. We love to see it!

Exhibitors and the Show Floor

Over the years, we have seen a steady growth in technology vendors exhibiting at the show. Accordingly, there is an entire area of one exhibit hall dedicated to technology at the expo. Interestingly, our booth wasn't located in that area with other technology vendors. This was partly due to booth availability and partly due to how and where we fit in the construction ecosystem. To be sure, Trux is a technology platform focused on material delivery and dump truck logistics. But the overwhelming majority of our customers and users are "in the field." Dispatchers, scale house operators, job site foremen, and, of course, truck drivers make up the bulk of our users. We expect to interact with these groups more when we are positioned closer to the equipment being used on the job site and in the field rather than in the office. Maybe we'll mix it up next year?

The technology on display at the expo wasn't limited to software solutions like Trux. There were hardware, smart equipment, fuel sensor gauges, and even robotics on display, including an interesting group in the booth next to us who launched a legged robot for rebar tying at the show! All of this painted a picture of an exciting future for construction  and how important the right technology solutions will be.

This year, the Trux booth had a lot of conversations with companies  around managing their fleet of trucks, increasing efficiency and material throughput at the plant, dispatching, managing, and tracking trucks, and finding more 3rd-party trucks to fill gaps. One of the main things we heard from companies who stopped by the booth was relying on phone calls and Excel spreadsheets isn't working. This is certainly not a new refrain.

While our main focus has been dispatching and managing dump truck logistics, we have noticed that this isn’t the only segment of the industry looking for a solution to make their jobs easier. We had many discussions about the need for solutions to address dispatching and managing pump trucks. We were also pleasantly surprised to meet and have conversations with companies from abroad, including Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Asia, and New Zealand!

Summary

Our main takeaway from the show is that technology and software is going to start making its way more and more into different aspects of the construction industry. Companies are moving toward software solutions to get the most out of the resources they have on hand in order to grow their business and stay ahead of their competition. They are in search of solutions that make their lives easier and help them go faster. Trux is meeting companies at the front of this charge and helping them harness technology to grow and scale.

Overall, Trux was encouraged by what we saw on the expo floor and the businesses we spoke to who are looking toward the future of the industry and who want to ensure their companies operate to their fullest capabilities, all while making their lives easier.

See you next year in Vegas!