SINGAPORE - Pan-United Corporation has inked a memorandum of understanding with South Korea's largest ready-mix concrete firm Eugene Corporation to explore opportunities for the adoption of the Singapore-listed company's artificial intelligence (AI) technology platform.
Dubbed AiR, the platform is a scalable digital system that can optimise operations along the entire vertical supply chain of cement and ready-mix concrete companies.
It plugs into existing operations to optimise every stage of the supply chain - from replenishing raw materials, managing customer orders and deploying capacity at batching plants to facilitating quality control checks and e-billing, said Pan-United.
Benefits include streamlining day-to-day operations, improving productivity, reducing manpower wastage and producing substantial cost savings, it added in a media release on Monday (Jan 6).
AiR is also modular and customisable, with parameters that can be set based factors such as cost versus time, truck assignments, priority customer projects.
The strategic agreement, signed by Pan-United's technology subsidiary, AiR Digital Solutions, will facilitate information-sharing with the South Korea-listed firm so it can assess the benefits of tapping on the AiR platform.
"Through this partnership with PanU, we seek to digitalise our entire end-to-end operations," said Mr Chung Jin-hak, chief executive officer of Eugene Corporation.
Pan-United chief operating officer Ken Loh said the platform has enabled his company to save 45 per cent in costs and raise its service standards since the first basic prototype was implemented in 2014.
"By bridging technology with strong domain knowledge from our two decades in the cement and ready-mix concrete industry, PanU has developed a new technology offering that can be commercialised and offered to other regional and global players," he added.
The company also recently designed and produced a 3D-printed concrete bench using NEWSand, a material created from repurposed municipal solid waste slag, in a project collaboration with Singapore's National Environment Agency.
Shares of Pan-United were trading up one cent or 2.9 per cent at 36 cents as of 9:45am on Monday after the announcement.
