Europe, Middle East, and Asia Report

Business in Europe, Middle East, and Asia has grown over the last 6 months. With our newly opened office in Mumbai, India, we are currently in the process of installing the first COMMANDconcrete installation and looking to expand our customer base for COMMANDbatch. We are growing our staff in the India office and expect to be adding two software support engineers in the very near future. We have also deployed COMMANDqc to this market as well.

In the Middle East we work directly with customers and local partners. We are pleased to have received our first COMMANDconcrete order in Dubai and are in line to add an additional two contracts in the region (Dubai and Saudi Arabia). This market continues to show growth for Command Alkon, particularly with our batching systems. Other Command Alkon products are receiving lots of attention from existing and potential customers in the region.

Southeast Asia has also shown substantial growth in our batching and quality control products. Our office in Kuala Lumpur is very central for the region, and provides a sales, support, and parts function that has been positively received in the region.

In Europe, we have continued to invest in our Bristol location through additional personnel. We are very excited to welcome our new partners in Paris, Concrete Equipements. Our European business is expanding and both companies will utilize this close relationship to better serve our customers in the region.

America's

Hello summer (or winter for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere)! As we move forward in 2008, we are reminded of several conversations that came about during our Customer Conference back in April. We were extremely impressed with the turnout in New Orleans and appreciated the great feedback regarding the training. Related to that training were some discussions that we had with many of you who have had our products in place for several years. Everyone always mentions that as time passes, people’s roles change within the organization. This change often leads to a brain drain in key areas and the organization does not feel that they are getting the most from our products that they used to get. Customers felt that the Conference was a great supplement for those who could attend, but wished that they could have brought more of their people to be a part of it.

We have heard this many times over the years. Ongoing training is an important component in assuring that your operations are indeed getting the most out of your Command Alkon products, or any software tools that you use. Statistics tell us that we, as humans, are capable of retaining about 40% of new information that we are presented with. Learning after that comes via repetition of information. Couple this with the changing roles of your personnel, and you start to see a dilution of knowledge develop, regardless of how effective the person moving on might be at training.

Many of our customers have “Super User” positions who maintain a high-level of expertise on our products to assure that they are getting the most out of the system. For others, this is not possible. We understand this, and would like to make sure that everyone is aware of the services we provide to you in getting the most out of our products.

We will continue to work on making the Customer Conference the best we can for everyone. In addition to the training provided at the Conference, there is much more that we can provide to you. We offer monthly training on our batching and software products at our Learning Centers in Birmingham, Columbus and Kansas City. We also provide on-site training if that is a more convenient option for you and your operational needs.

In addition to these offers, our Service and Account Management personnel can work with you to put a training package together based on your specific needs. We would schedule a visit to evaluate your personnel’s use of our products and then create a training plan based on the findings of that evaluation.

Training Services information can be found on our website at www.commandalkon.com. Course dates, locations, and descriptions are posted there. You may also contact your Account Manager or anyone on our Services team for more information. In today’s competitive markets, we want to make sure that you are getting the most out of your investment. Please feel free to contact us and let us know how we can help make sure that you are using your Command Alkon products as effectively as possible. We will be happy to help you!

Business Integration Services

The Business Integration Services team is working hard to bring you value-added solutions. Staffed with application and industry experts, we offer consulting services and develop customized solutions to help you achieve your business goals.

Our COMMANDperformance product has seen many new installations over the summer. Producers have chosen to implement this solution to get more insight into revenue and cost performance in these difficult economic times.

The Business Intelligence/Performance Management space has recently experienced rapid merger and acquisition activity. Oracle announced its acquisition of Hyperion in March 2007. SAP acquired Business Objects (who acquired Crystal Decisions in 2003) and IBM recently acquired our partner, Cognos. We have been in contact with Cognos and do not anticipate any changes in our strategic alliance and our ability to deliver Performance Management solutions using the Cognos suite of products. In fact, we recently launched our COMMANDperformance solution using Cognos 8 Version 3.

ScheduleCom from CenApps Technologies has become a mission critical application for more and more producers across the United States and overseas. Easily communicating driver start times and important messages, ScheduleCom has become an integral piece in day-to-day operations. Optional data interface of scheduled start and stop time from ScheduleCom with time tracking and payroll systems continues to add value for many of our customers.

The Enterprise Content Management (ECM) team has been very busy with new implementations and has added more functionality to existing systems. Several customers have continued to leverage their initial investment in OnBase by adding additional departments and functionality. Our team and many customers will be attending OTTC (OnBase Training and Technology Conference) this September in Las Vegas.

Halley Walker and Ronnie Hamilton have recently been added to the ECM Implementation and Support Team. Ronnie joined Command Alkon earlier this year and Halley has transferred from the COMMANDseries Professional Services Group.

COMMANDcommerce has been gaining momentum. Our portal solution for allowing your customers to access COMMANDseries order and project information is now being expanded to include order and delivery information from Apex. They can also view signed delivery tickets when the system is deployed along with ECM.

We are happy to announce that ScheduleCom, COMMANDperformance, COMMANDcommerce and OnBase customers can now reach support from our normal support phone tree. Simply press 2 after the greeting and then select the desired product.

You can also e-mail the service staff directly at:

schedulecom@commandalkon.com
CP8@commandalkon.com
ECM@commandalkon.com
commerce@commandalkon.com.

Fleet and Quality Control Update

Quality Control We are delighted with the excitement surrounding the release of our highly anticipated concrete quality control product, COMMANDqc. Since its official release in April of this year, our implementation consultants have been very busy installing COMMANDqc in the U.S. and abroad.

Customers using COMMANDqc are reporting immediate cost savings and seeing additional dollars going directly to their bottom line. Fully integrated with COMMANDseries, COMMANDqc helps reduce costs in both raw materials and man hours. This built-in integration ensures that your raw material, mix design and cost information are accurate in both your quality control system and your dispatch system.

The COMMANDqc Mix Adjustor is a life saver for busy Quality Control departments. Using the Mix Adjustor, you can make changes to hundreds of mixes in just a few minutes. After approving the changes, COMMANDqc allows you to send the new mixes to the plant immediately or schedule them for activation at a later time.

Other areas of the system that are helping customers to save money are the Mix Submittal and Mix Editor modules. The COMMANDqc Mix Editor gives you the ability to design a mix and immediately send it to the plant for production. Using user-entered grading specifications and the built-in grading graphs, you can quickly determine how the mix will conform to the selected specification and then make any required changes. The Mix Editor gives users the ability to change constituents, set mix or plant level characteristics and also mark the mix as ready for a submittal.

The integration with COMMANDseries provides even more benefits. Since the system is fully integrated, you can copy it to the plant as a different product or activate it for immediate production. The integrated Mix Submittal module fully automates the document preparation process and produces a single PDF file that can include a custom cover letter, mix design reports, gradations, or almost any other document that you choose to include as part of your submittal. Whether you are a new user or an existing ConAd user ready to upgrade, COMMANDqc can help you save more money. Contact your Account Manager now for more information.

Fleet Management
The COMMANDfleet Server (CSIS), which removes the need for a signaling COMMANDcomm and manages the communication between your fleet and the COMMANDseries application, is the cornerstone of this application. We currently support COMMANDsignal and Trimble signaling devices. Since these installations are typically performed remotely from our Command Alkon Support Desk, we save you money by avoiding travel expenses.

We are also focusing efforts on the COMMANDfleet Dispatcher Desktop solution. The Dispatcher Desktop has supported the Microsoft MapPoint interface, but now an alternative mapping solution is offered through Telogis. Telogis Maps are updated quarterly and allow for additional functionality, such as enhanced routing. Alert and Event Notifications are another new feature added to the COMMANDfleet Dispatcher Desktop. All incoming messages, statuses, and events can be configured per user to prompt a low, medium, or high priority message to the dispatcher.

Enhancements and improvements also continue with the EXP Tracking and Scheduling application. Monitoring all order and truck activity for central and plant dispatch operations, EXP Tracking provides dispatchers an overall delivery outlook with quick dispatch ticketing capabilities. EXP Scheduling provides your dispatchers a graph depicting an overall delivery demand with truck capacity for single or multiple plants. Views can be configured for current and future days.

Optimization
COMMANDoptimize goes live at Ready Mixed Denver.

Dispatchers at Ready Mixed Denver have the next generation dispatch aid at their side. COMMANDoptimize is now live in Denver and is presenting the dispatch team with real-time dispatch suggestions to increase fleet productivity and lower delivery costs. The optimizer’s plan is presented to the dispatcher in the form of optimized Load Assignments, Return Truck Return to an Alternate Plant from Job, Deadheading and Next Day Callout suggestions. COMMANDoptimize was tuned to meet Ready Mixed Denver’s goals for service and minimizing delivery costs. Dispatchers at Ready Mixed Denver have enjoyed having a “co-pilot” focusing on efficiency and service allowing them to be more proactive to the challenges of the dispatch day.

COMMANDoptimize has recently added the ability to link product schedules as well as order schedules with a defined gap. This allows for automatic adjustments to those pesky leading pours that speed up/slow down with no dispatcher warning. Future enhancements will include constituent level material cost in the optimization calculations, Truck Pre-Assignments and improved Demand Graph Display. Stay tuned for more exciting results from this leading edge product.

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