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Are You as Productive as You Could Be?
BY FRED ODE
Imagine a contractor who had no idea
how many pieces of field equipment he
owned or what they were used for.
Imagine a contractor who bought new
backhoes each time he started a job
because his employees convinced him that
newer equipment would be faster.
Hard to imagine? Consider office
technologies in place of field equipment,
and the situation above is not so unlikely.
Nothing is more vital to contractors than
their tools. But the efficient tracking of
information in the office is a close second.
Many contractors overlook this essential
area, however, leaving decisions about
processes and technology to be made
unsystematically by others.
With the start of a new year, now is a
great time to rationally and systematically
assess the company’s technology processes
and products. But don’t think that a
simple spreadsheet listing of tools is
enough. The key is to understand what is
working and what is not.
IDENTIFYING THE WEAK POINTS
Construction executives are good at
assessing systems and processes that work
in the field and eliminating those that are
intrinsically inefficient. These same basic
principles can be applied in the office.
According to Sharon Minnock, president
of Minnock Consulting Inc., an
independent information technology
consulting firm dedicated to the construction
industry, the first step is to look at
the systems in place before evaluating new
technological tools.
“Many processes are far less efficient
than people realize,”Minnock says. “The
project manager who gets a billing report
when he asks for it may feel like it’s efficiently
handled, but what he may not know
is the data was entered two or three times.”
Minnock recommends first identifying
areas with obvious inefficiencies. For
example, what processes take a long time
to complete? Are some tasks being done
manually? Are multiple systems used
when one could do it all? How simple are
the processes? Could tasks be transferred
easily to other individuals if staff members
leave or are promoted?
CHARTING THE FLOW
Most brand new companies instinctively
identify simple procedures needed to get
work done, and many have found ways to
make that happen. Only truly mature
companies, however, say they’ve analyzed
how all those processes work together.
How does one department’s processes
affect the next department’s? For example,
do estimating and accounting software work
together to record budget information for
a job, or is the information entered twice
or tracked differently?
In construction, technology inefficiencies
are common because of piecemeal
purchases. A specific request comes
in, and technology is purchased without
thought as to how it affects the larger flow
of information. Before companies know
it, they have built a lot of bridges with
different connections to data. This haphazard
approach may work—for a while.
The problem is that many companies
identify the gaps only when the backup
fails, when the invoice is lost, or when the
connection with the jobsite falters.
Each time a need for new technology
arises, it’s not enough to look at the job
description of a single employee and determine
if he has the procedures and technology
needed to complete the work. The real
question is, “What are the informational
goals of the company, and does the technology
in place help that information to
flow according to company needs?”
For companies that have not been doing
this all along, a once-a-year examination of
data flow can be essential. Before going any
further in assessing technological assets,
determine where the information weaknesses
are located. Armed with that information,
it’s much easier to fill the holes with
the correct technology.
ASSESSING CURRENT PRODUCTS
As weaknesses are identified, the knee-jerk
reaction is to buy more technology to
address them. Before considering the purchase
of new products, however, construction
executives need to take a long, hard
look at their current systems, particularly
software applications. Research shows
that users of sophisticated applications,
such as construction-specific software,
utilize only a fraction of their systems’
capabilities and features.
“New systems, same old processes,”
Minnock says, is a common problem she
encounters among construction clients
who revert back to old, less-efficient
processes because they don’t fully
understand the new software. She mentions
one company, for example, that
used spreadsheets for billing, spending
approximately one week each month to
complete this task. After showing the
staff how to set up AIA billings in their
software, they now spend only one
afternoon on the entire billing process.
Once problems are identified, the solutions
are often quite simple. Spending
time to train new employees, learn new
system upgrades, or perhaps bring in a
consultant from the software vendor, may
be all it takes to increase efficiency and
better utilize a system that’s already
installed and paid for.
THE DECIDING FACTOR
After pinpointing areas of inefficiency
and assessing current products, the decision
to invest in new technology may ultimately
prove to be the best solution.
According to Minnock, decision-makers
should first take a look at their company
and consider two issues.
“Typically, the deciding factor is
money, but it really should be risk assessment
and competition,” she says. “To
determine risk level, companies need to
ask what they are risking by not having
the technology. The competition factor
consists of what puts the company ahead
of the competition and what tools it needs
to best meet customers’ needs.”
A company can feel confident with a
high technology IQ that provides the
grounds for increasing efficiency and
making good decisions about technology
purchases. A once-a-year assessment of
these issues may be all it takes to capitalize
on technology and avoid the inefficiencies
that plague not-so-savvy competitors.
Ode is CEO/chairman of Foundation Software.
For more information, call (800) 246-0800 or
email fred@foundationsoft.com.
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