Construction Software

Posts Tagged ‘North American’

Construction companies of every size, nature and purpose are our infrastructure developers through and through. With out them we do not have schools, hospitals, streets, public buildings, roads, streets, bridges or even homes to live in and the list goes on. Obviously, without construction companies, infrastructure eventually falls apart.

While we can all understand why construction companies play a major role in our North American economy, they also tend to be one of our most highly misunderstood business organization types, primarily by those employed in other industries.

For those on the inside, construction is a different story. Construction people are different. They are risk takers. Construction company owners and engineers make major decisions several times a day. They understand the value of time, especially their own. They all know their ticket to their next job is making it through the current one, hopefully with a profit to show for their efforts when it is done.

The opportunities for risk avoidance are few in construction but risk management is a never ending process because conditions change by the minute.

Walk onto a construction site and ask the owner or the chief project engineer; “How’s things going? Can you set up a meeting with the owners to-morrow morning?” and there is a pretty good chance you will get an answer something like this.

“Materials didn’t arrive like they were supposed to at noon. I have no idea what happened to the truck. I was told it was leaving at 7:00 o’clock this morning and it’s still not here. Three guys didn’t show up for work. The sub-contractor is behind schedule. It has rained for four days in a row. Payment on last month’s progress billing is late and payroll is due on Friday. A power plant that supplies power for the air filtration system just broke down and we need to rent one immediately. Where can I get one?  That’s all the issues I have to contend with at the moment and you’re asking me about tomorrow!  Yeah, I suppose we can fit it in. What time?”

Not one of these issues were ever considered by the estimator who prepared the tender documents eight months ago. It’s the people on the job sites that run the jobs, not the people in the offices.

There is an old saying that goes something like this: “This is where the rubber meets the road.”

When you walked onto that job site and asked that question. You were right in the heat of it. You were where right where the rubber meets the road. You saw reality travelling at a frightening speed. But don’t worry. It will all be new issues tomorrow, but to-day, we look after to-day, to-day no one knows what tomorrow’s issues will be.

In construction, these are the issues that determine where fortunes are made and lost. And it has nothing to do with fancy costing systems or coding of all that paperwork or employee and equipment time to a mired of cost codes. The truth is, where the rubber really meets the road, cost codes make not one nit of difference. The job was bid at a set price and the job has to be done before the contractor gets his money. The owner doesn’t give a rip about those cost codes.

 So, what about construction ERP software? Does it make any sense? 

It sure does. But not the way traditional construction ERP software is designed to handle it, far from it.

Construction ERP software must be simple. It must be easy to use and because there is a huge amount of construction services performed by people who, at heart, are and will forever be entrepreneurship minded, it would be a real good thing if it were also affordable.

There is a new definition of ERP software, one contractors can use that fits all these criteria – the unERP. The fact it is an information system “first” and foremost, and secondly an accounting system makes perfect sense in the construction environment.

Posted in Info | Tags: air filtration system, Construction, Definition, ERP, Exciting, job, North American, progress billing, risk avoidance, Ron Bunn, software | No Comments »