Unlocking AI for NextGen Growth 2030 at Holcim

HOLCIM’S AI USE MUST BENEFIT PEOPLE AND THE PLANET

So the value of AI is clear. Yet for all the justifiable excitement around it, the most important thing for Holcim is that AI must benefit people and the planet. Our digital progress must reflect our deepest human values: fairness, trust and prosperity.

The future of sustainable construction will be human-led and AI-enabled. This is the principle that guides Holcim’s use of AI to drive performance and create value for our people, customers and shareholders.

Holcim is actively upskilling its people - from early career to senior leaders - with AI-focused training and tools to help them be more productive, collaborate more easily and make better decisions – freeing up time for collaboration, innovation, and problem solving.

We’re incubating AI at Holcim through Holcim University – nurturing talent from early career to senior leaders – while our AI Community of Practice is an AI knowledge and collaboration hub. At the same time, we’re partnering with AI hyperscalers, startups, universities and other experts.

To ensure that AI is used lawfully, responsibly and effectively, Holcim has robust AI Governance in place, with an AI Directive, AI Solutions Inventory and AI Governance Council – mechanisms that mitigate risk and promote ethical implementation.

Holcim is unlocking the potential of AI across four core business functions:

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PRODUCTION
 

Taking Manufacturing first, here we want to enhance our asset reliability, energy efficiency, quality and decarbonization through predictive and autonomous systems.

Through Plants of Tomorrow, Holcim’s Industry 4.0 program, I’ve seen during my own site visits how we’re modernizing our global network of plants by integrating advanced technologies from AI to robotics, while upskilling our people to deliver value.

Here’s just one example. Holcim M-Predict solution uses smart sensors and AI-powered prediction models that enable us to monitor equipment performance and drive operational excellence – reducing downtime, improving safety and increasing plant availability.

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LOGISTICS
 

My colleague Elodie Robin and her teams in Logistics work tirelessly to optimize our planning, forecasting and execution to ensure our supply chains are more resilient and customer centric.

Every year, Holcim moves millions of tons of materials by truck, ship and rail. We’re increasing efficiency in logistics through AI-driven demand planning and inventory forecasting, as well as network optimization tools and digital twins, which optimize our logistics network and routings.

Holcim Foresight is a tool that we’re looking to roll out across all our markets by the end of 2026. It uses AI-powered models for sales and inventory – optimizing fleet and network utilization and ensuring more reliable deliveries for customers, and reduced costs and emissions.

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COMMERCIAL
 

In Commercial, AI helps us create a superior quality customer experience through always-on digital channels, and we’re integrating several AI capabilities into a unified commercial engine with customer relationship management (CRM) as its main digital backbone.

HOLCIM+ platform is an AI-powered customer platform for integrated forecasting, planning, ordering and delivery with real-time tracking 24/7. Ninety-three per cent of our cement sales are already digitalized, and we have other AI tools to support tendering, offering and negotiations, as well as improve the productivity of our sales teams.

In Spain, 89% of customers using our AI Ordering Assistant feature place an order - proof of the tool’s quality and convenience, and of how AI is changing the way we interact with customers.

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ADMINISTRATION
 

With AI we can streamline mundane administrative tasks – giving execution power to our people. We are giving them tools that increase productivity, and that enhance decision-makings by harnessing multiple data sources.

One great example is CareerHub, our AI-powered talent marketplace that matches Holcim’s more than 45 000 people worldwide with business opportunities to create value and nurture talent. Alongside my colleagues, I can use this platform to learn about projects and jobs, as well as learning and networking opportunities to accelerate my personal and career growth.

Additionally, Predict AU – which has been rolled out to every Holcim site globally – is the world’s first visual safety incident prediction and prevention tool that detects sites with high probability of a critical incident, allowing us to trigger early interventions.

AI AT HOLCIM HAS IMMENSE POTENTIAL
 

These are just a few examples of tools we’re using. We’ve entered a new era where AI will be increasingly deeply embedded in every aspect of Holcim’s business. This has immense potential to create value for people, customers and shareholders.

We’re at the start of a really exciting journey, and I’m excited to see what the future holds.