“We’re selling software,” says Erick Schoenkopf at Vertigraph Inc., producers of estimating and project management software for the construction industry, “but what we’re really doing is management consulting. We’re helping contractors get systems in place that add to their productivity and help maintain consistency in their operations.”
For savvy contractors like Brasfield & Gorrie LLC in Birmingham, AL, software makes it possible for four—at the most five—estimators to support 40 project managers in the company’s million-dollar-a-year commercial and health care division. On the other hand, for Tony Poole, a self-described “hillbilly” contractor in Burlington, KY, a computer and Vertigraph’s SiteWorx have made the difference between being seen as professional and not. “You’re on the phone with a client, and you’re giving him your best educated guess,” says Poole, “and all of a sudden things get really quiet. When I bid a job with the computer, I have all my quantities, including my subsoil, topsoil, re-spread. I feel confident in my numbers, and I can hand the client a printout.”
“It’s a comfort factor,” says Jim Burke, construction manager at Paragon Environmental Construction Inc. in Syracuse, NY, which uses EarthWorks voice-activated takeoff software from Trakware Inc. “We’ve used it to win cases. When you show up in court with a computer-generated document, it creates a certain image. People automatically back away from the other guy with his file of handwritten documents.”
So why wouldn’t a contractor computerize? “We were scared at first,” says Fran Cunningham, vice president of Landmark Enterprises in Auburn, NY, who uses SiteWork and Field General from InSite SiteWork Inc. “But that was a lot of years ago. With today’s technology, I don’t know why you’d do it any other way. Maybe the cost scares some people. But if you’re doing cuts and fills, there’s no better way to do it. You’re more accurate, and it definitely improves your bidding.”
Contractors we talked with may have different advice for choosing and using software, but they all agreed they’ll never go back, whether it’s for estimating, doing takeoffs, or tracking costs. “I tell people I’d rather sleep on a cardboard box under a bridge,” says John Chambliss, chief estimator for Brasfield & Gorrie. The criteria Chambliss and other software users offered for selecting what’s best include taking a good honest look at the size of your company, the type of work you’re doing, and where you’re headed. Will you want to import CAD files? Is machine control in your future? Make an accurate assessment of your corporate resources—who on your staff will be using what you buy? How much training are you willing to invest in? How much time are you willing to dedicate to get your system up and running? What level of technical support do you expect you’ll need? How important are add-ons and upgrades?
“You can’t take somebody who’s never been involved in construction, never read a set of plans, and give them a digitizer and expect miracles,” says Chuck Redman, who owns Siteworx Estimating Services in Ronkonkoma, NY, and uses SiteWork for takeoff and CAD import. “Software can make a good estimator more accurate, but it doesn’t make a good estimator.”
Anyone thinking about estimating and tracking software should know how versatile he wants his system to be. The more configurable the system, the easier it will be to track costs, say, but the more you’ll need someone who knows his way around a computer. “We’re very committed to our systems, from our accounting and cost control systems through estimating,” says Nick Coccagna, controller for P.J. Dick Inc./Trumbull Corp. in Mifflin, PA. “We use HCSS for estimating, Profitool [Profitool Inc.] for accounting and cost control, and Lotus Notes [IBM].
Profitool has a very strong job cost module, and we’re very committed to monitoring daily costs and having our project managers review their cost reports. Profitool provides the flexibility we need.
“You can set up a category arrangement that maps accounts to different categories and then decide what you want to call them. You can map all of your fringes, payroll taxes, and insurance into an account you call ‘labor.’ Then when somebody’s looking at a cost report, they’ll see total labor dollars. There are hundreds of configuration perimeters. But for something as configurable as Profitool, you really need a person with technical ability.”
What it amounts to is that for it to be worth the investment in time and money, contractors should be sure about what they want software to do. They should commit to taking the time to implement the system correctly and to train their target employees. And they should demo before they buy. The less you know about computers and the more you want your software to accomplish, the more important it is to give it a try.
At Earthwork Consulting Services Inc., Marty Schmidt does earthwork calculations for contractors. And for those who want to do it themselves he sells Carlson Takeoff software. “It’s really, really difficult for a contractor who’s buying earthwork software for the first time to know that he’s getting the right program,” says Schmidt. “First, he has to really know the types of project he bids. Second, he should get a demonstration on one of his own jobs.”
At Hard Dollar Inc., suppliers of bidding and tracking software, Brad Barth thinks it’s ironic that contractors otherwise expert at purchasing put themselves in the hands of vendors when it comes to software. “Whether they’re buying subcontractors or materials, contractors will build very specific documents describing what they’re buying,” says Barth. “And when it comes to software the successful ones will sit down before they contact vendors and list what they want to accomplish. They get clear on their business objectives and what they want to achieve. Then they narrow down vendors according to how what they offer matches their business criteria.
“In the estimating and tracking end, what we’re seeing is that successful contractors are trying to eliminate problems like redundant data entry. They want to be able to reuse information from previous bids. They’re trying to make their people more productive by sharing information in a consistent format—they don’t want Fred having his own particular spreadsheet and Cindy hers. They want to be able to share information from the jobs they’ve worked on, and they want the ability to capture information in a format that allows it to be passed on historically, over time. Often enough the founder or owner is the company’s repository of knowledge about how projects are bid, and as the company grows, he becomes the bottleneck. With software he can leverage his knowledge with junior estimators who, instead of bothering him with questions, can make use of information that has been captured and systematized.
“I tell contractors when they’re considering software that they should think as broadly as they possibly can about solving their overall business problem, not just one piece of it,” says Barth, who also points out that a demo using one of your own jobs can also be accomplished online. “We use their data or an Excel spreadsheet. This goes a long way toward making the presentation applicable to what a contractor is doing, and he can grasp it a lot easier.”
Inventorying what you need can also lead you to specialized software such as utility takeoff software from Fastlane Construction Software Inc. Scott Davis, estimator at Ford Construction Co. in Lodi, CA, says Fastlane adds up to a 25% to 50% time savings on his pipe takeoffs. Ford Construction does landfills and may move as much as “a couple hundred yards of dirt around at a time. What I like,” says Davis, “is the software is voice-activated; it prompts you for information in the order the program needs it. Not typing makes things go a lot quicker.”
When demoing a software program, Schmidt advises trying the least expensive software first. “Then when you try something more complicated, you’ll be able to compare the two and ask questions that will help you understand the first system you tried. A contractor who has no experience is not really going to understand what he’s seeing in the first demonstration, but he’ll start to understand in the second. You really need to take your time.”
How about software providers that send a disc and leave you to your own devices? Is a 30-day day trial enough for somebody starting from scratch? “You can at least do simple takeoffs quickly,” says Steve Green, senior estimator at Three Oaks Construction of John’s Island, SC, who uses InSite’s SiteWork in combination with Field General Office, which he bought in anticipation of building models for machine control. “With InSite’s tutorials you can find out very quickly whether you can use the product effectively. If you can use an Excel spreadsheet or a simple document in Microsoft Word you can certainly run their software.
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“Anybody who’s in the business of earthmoving and not using a computerized takeoff program is going to run into trouble at some point in time,” says Green. “There’s too large a margin for error, and it takes too long doing it the old way by hand. The risk is that you will take shortcuts and leave something out. Or you’ll pad your numbers so much that you don’t get the job. Right away, this takes you out of being competitive.” For estimating and tracking Three Oaks Construction uses Bid2Win, and even though he’s something of a computer geek, Green went for training. “When we bought it, they insisted that we have two days of training. I was skeptical because I know my way around a computer pretty well. But it really did cut down the learning curve. That’s one thing I tell people. Take advantage of the training.”
What about doing what Tony Poole did, downloading Vertigraph’s software off the Web? Poole’s work is typically small-scale site development, under 10,000 yards for fast food restaurants like IHOP and Wendy’s. “I was one of those backward people who didn’t have a cell phone,” says Poole. “I didn’t have a computer, and I’ll have to admit it’s intimidating at first. But I just rolled out my digitizer board on an old kitchen table, plugged in the computer, downloaded the software, and started. I used the practice sheet and did everything they said and when I came up with what they had, I figured I was OK. When I didn’t, I called them. I probably called them 20 times in the beginning.”
Technical support is another factor in successful software application—what kind, when it’s available, and what it’s likely to cost. “They should call it ‘customer support,’” says Chambliss, who has used Hard Dollar’s software at four different companies and says he still calls technical support when things that shouldn’t stump him do. “‘Technical support’ implies you’re going to get someone who’s going to tell you’ve got something wrong with your hardware or you video driver’s messed up. Whereas I’m sitting here saying, ‘How do I add three carpenters on a job when I’ve already got two?’ I call, they tell me two ways I can do it, and as I soon as they do, I think, ‘Dumb me,’ and hang up.” Hard Dollar’s technical support comes in a package that includes automatic software updates.
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Chambliss says he also uses Hard Dollar’s Bid*Build to check on subcontractors. “Even though we have no intention of self-performing the work, we’ll price it that way, which will tell us whether the sub prices are coming in fair or not.”
“If you’re going to buy software, you definitely want to know about your technical support,” says Redman. “Are they there 24/7? What type of person is going to call you back? Will you get a level-one person who can handle it, or will you have to wait for someone else to get back to you?”
“Digitizers break,” says Steve Warfle, product manager at InSite. “Windows crashes. You can get a virus on your machine. And most companies are ill prepared to wait around for help.
“Ultimately with any software usage, having the software is the small part of the investment. Software is the actual product that allows you to do things, but without training you’re not going to be successful. If you’re the type of customer who doesn’t like to call, select a product with good documentation in the manual and online. It will end up being hugely important to you.”
But whom in their operation should contractors aim to train? What skills and background should employees have when they sit down at the computer? The consensus is it’s critical to know what you’re doing before you try to do it with software. Know estimating; know earthwork.
“If you have an idea about how moving dirt is supposed to work and you know how you operate, it’s just a matter of taking your skills and your knowledge and applying it to the takeoff program,” says Mike Wubben of Wubben Brothers Inc. in Vancouver, WA. Wubben started young; he was already working with the head estimator when he was in high school. “I pretty much got started with a 98 version of AGTEK and jumped right into it. When you know earthmoving, you will have your gut feeling of how close things should be. You can toss this into the computer and it should give you a readout similar to what your feeling is. If not, check your numbers—or call InSite.”
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“I consider myself technically challenged,” says Burke at Paragon Environmental Construction. “The beauty of a software program is you can edit it. If you discover the topsoil isn’t 6 inches, it’s 8 inches, you can change it with a few clicks and the program changes the calculations for you very quickly and efficiently. This is time-consuming to do manually, and you’re not as accurate. But it’s like anything—if you don’t understand the actual concept of what you’re doing, sometimes you can catch yourself making an error.
“You’ve got to understand the business. The younger kids used to hate me because I made them do it by hand first before they could use a computer. It was slow and tedious, but I did it so they’d understand what they were actually doing—what a cut line looks like or what a section line really represents.” The software Burke uses comes with four and a half hours of video training built into the software. Hit the “show me” button and a video pops up and takes you through the whole process, say, of doing borings. Trakware operates under the philosophy that it doesn’t charge for technical support so why generate help calls.
“I’m the construction manager, but I do the takeoffs and the estimating,” says Fran Cunningham at Landmark Enterprises in Auburn, NY, where his mother once did takeoffs by hand.
“Trust me, when we got the software, we didn’t know much about computers, but we got it fine because it makes sense. If you understand what you’re trying to take off, it’s easy. You can go back and check yourself if something doesn’t look right. You can go back and highlight your grade lines or look at it in 3D and see if you see a hole or a hill where there isn’t supposed to be one. If you were doing it the old way, you’d have to go back through all your blocks and you might never catch it.
“You’ve got 30 acres of a field, and with a couple of control points and the software you can lay out the building, the roads, and the water and start putting your dirt in the right spot, put your pipe in the right place, lay out the curbs. I do all my own layout, and very seldom do I hire a surveyor anymore. Only if I need a couple of points certified or a couple of control points put in.
“We have the takeoff portion here in the office and Field General on my laptop, which I take into the field. Using it I can set the grade stakes, which means I don’t have a dozen guys making $35 an hour waiting around. If you’re on the job with this all day and there’re big cuts, you don’t have to put a stake in the ground. I can walk around and tell the operators what to do.”
On the estimating end of the spectrum, Barth says, Hard Dollar has customers where the estimator has installed the software himself using the software’s tutorials. “In a few hours they’re up and running. They’re not experts yet, but they’re up and running and producing estimates.”
“The software is flexible enough that the functionality can be defined by the actual employee using it,” says Chambliss of Hard Dollar’s Bid*Build. “One of the things that’s built into it is a dynamic two-way integration with Excel so you can actually continue to use your spreadsheets and drive the values in the software program.”
Based on his experience with his own business, Redman thinks when it comes to using computers for takeoffs, it depends on your education and experience. “I come from a family of land surveyors and I have a lot of insight for doing earthwork and takeoffs, and this helped me with the learning curve. But that aside, you still have to have a knowledge of some light field engineering. And you have to be careful not to mouse click your way into a disaster with a digitizer because it does desensitize you. Even today I have to constantly keep myself in tune with the intricacies of the job and not take it for granted that I’m going to trace something and hit ‘print’ and develop quantities I can estimate on. But if I didn’t have a digitizer, I’d have to charge my customer a lot more because I’d need a roomful of people with drafting tables.”
Mike Kaminisky, estimator and project manager for Atlantic Excavation Corp. in Needham, MA, came off the Central Artery and Tunnel Project in Boston as construction observer and field engineer to learn Trakware’s EarthWorks, which he says was worth taking the time. “We use it as sales tool,” says Kaminisky. “We look a lot better than the guy who shows up with some cross sections.”
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“I would say any employee who’s familiar with computers and uses them for other aspects is going to adapt easier,” says Chambliss, “and they’ll be the ones you’ll want to have work on your databases. Because the pencil and paper guys are going to be a little more reluctant. So let the younger guys get everything going, and then the old timers can use it. You can take a superintendent who knows nothing about computers, set up the estimate and the databases, and once all that has been done by somebody who’s more computer savvy, he can pop in, pick and choose what he wants—five days or 500 yards an hour or whatever his criteria is—and price it.”
“Estimators,” says Schoenkopf at Vertigraph. “They’re more open to getting the job done quicker and easier, and they’re under a lot of pressure to bid more work in less amount of time. Project managers often don’t have the time to learn it, so we shy away from selling to those guys.”
“Whipping around computers is not my forte,” says Burke. “But if you start off with a good bid, you have a great chance of having a successful job. If you start off with a bad bid, it takes a crafty guy out in the field to make it fit. The time savings alone, and the comfort factor—that when you’re moving hundreds of thousands of yards of dirt you have the confidence and comfort that you’re going to start off with a good bid—that’s priceless.”
Journalist Penelope Grenoble O’Malley is a frequent contributor to environmental publications.
GEC
- May/June 2006 |
