Web site results in accountability and self-esteem

Concrete Construction, July, 2003 by Lee Clark

The job sheet also collects information from our pour and finish crew to protect us from risk and to help us learn from any problems.

This sheet also tracks all the equipment billed to a job, showing a picture of that piece of equipment. Once applied to a job, the program runs a ticket that shows the foreman how many dollars in equipment are being added to the job that day. We can also do this with inventory. The foreman is then directly responsible for how much is being spent on the job, and he knows where the cash is going.

We split all of the inventory off as a separate company called Site-bound Supplies, a material supply company automatically billed to Garber Brothers. We found in the past that at the end of the year a lot of inventory was missing--$30 to $40 thousand lost because it never got costed to a job. By setting up a separate corporation, we focused on recording and applying to jobs properly. Our own jobs get a discount, but we sell inventory to other concrete companies or general contractors as well.

The report that management uses most is the superintendent report. It tells them the jobs that are running and the dollar amount budgeted and spent. Here's the goal and here's the actual. Everyone knows the measuring systems and can understand the expected production rates. Everyone can see how much our average labor cost is per man-hour. So if someone says "wait a minute--what equipment did we rent that cost so much?" he can drill down and look at the invoices for every piece of rented equipment and say when something was misbilled. Changes go directly into the internal costing system. More eyes looking at every cost ensures our accuracy.

The work-in-process statement tells the exact contract amount, the original estimates, any adjustments, and the actual cost of completion, estimated profit, and how much was overbilled or underbilled. Everything on the system is live so there's no need to wait until the end of the month for information. We know exactly what our backlog is today, right now, and we take comfort in knowing whether we can take on any more work.

Another function, called "memos," is like an internal e-mail system. We can post news on the home page with pictures. We can congratulate everyone for completing a tough job and have pictures that make people feel like they are part of the whole. Birthdays and anniversaries also show up.

At the end of the week, everyone checks that all the job sheets are filled out, time is checked off and all the information is entered.

Then, each week, with one press of a button, the payroll clerk calculates and checks everyone's time, applies overtime, and posts it to the accounting system. All that's left is calculating taxes by hitting another button and processing the direct deposit. Payroll is complete in about 15 minutes.

This system paid for itself after the first year. We spent about $50,000, less than we were spending each year just to process payroll. We began in January 1999, and in 6 months we eliminated the paper system.