Category: <span>Software</span>

Category: Software

Q4 Commercial Construction Outlook – Focus on Technology

Posted on

By Karen L. Edwards, RoofersCoffeeShop® Editor.

Contractors believe that new technologies like drones, augmented reality, artificial intelligence will be useful for productivity and improved safety on jobsites.

Throughout the year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and USG Corporation survey contractors and release a quarterly report detailing their findings. In the recently published Q4 report, contractors shared that the lack of skilled labor is impacting productivity, scheduling and safety. They are searching for new innovations and solutions to address the labor issue.

The Q4 report explored the topic of technology on the jobsite and found that contractors believe that new technologies like drones, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and more will be useful for productivity and improved safety on jobsites. Their show that 74 percent of contractors expect the adoption of technologies to grow quickly over the next few years.

Contractors were asked about their use of advanced technologies and 54% reported that they have used at least one of the following technologies on their jobsite, with drones being the most widely used.

  • Drones – 34%
  • Equipment tagging – 16%
  • Wearable technology – 6%
  • RFID Tagging – 8%
  • Augmented and/or virtual reality – 13%
  • Reality capture – 7%
  • Automated equipment or robotics – 5%
  • 3D printing – 5%
  • Not using any of the above – 46%, with 26% indicating that they plan to implement in the near future

The use of these advanced technologies is more prevalent among general contractors than trade contractors. Seventy-three percent of GCs reported that they use at least one of the advanced technologies and usage is expected to grow faster by GCs (to 85%) and larger contractors than by smaller contractors and the trades (59%).

Since many of these technologies are just emerging in the construction industry the study questioned contractors to find out the top three benefits that would encourage them to adopt a new technology. They indicated that labor productivity (66%) is by far the biggest benefit that would convince them to invest in a technology. Schedule, budget and safety were close behind.

Seventy-five percent of contractors surveyed believe that advanced technologies like equipment tagging, robotics and wearable tech can be useful to improve labor productivity and manage project schedules.

Other trends show that at least ¾ of the large companies expected to hire more workers in the next six months where only about half of mid-sized and smaller companies plan to do so. Finding skilled workers remains a challenge with well over half of respondents reporting difficulty. Interestingly, contractors in the western U.S. report a higher level of difficulty (70%) versus their counterparts in the rest of the country, which ranges from 52 – 58 percent. One survey respondent said, “My single most important concern about my business in the next 12 months is hiring the right people and keeping the right people.”

For the purposes of the Commercial Construction Index, the report defines commercial construction as the following types of buildings: office, retail, hospitality, education, healthcare, multifamily residential (mid-and high-rise), government, warehouses, airport terminals and other transportation buildings.

Check out the full Q4 report here.

Source: RoofersCoffeeShop

4 Ways Software Can Give Roofers a Better Work Life Balance

Posted on

By Molly Stein, AccuLynx.

For roofers, it can be challenging to balance your busy work life and personal home life. When you’re busy at the job site all day or on the road, your evenings can be dominated by playing catch-up with your office work or reporting, instead of with your family at home.

Mental Health America encourages workers to develop a healthy balance between work and downtime, stating,

“While we all need a certain amount of stress to spur us on and help us perform at our best, the key to managing stress lies in that one magic word: balance. Not only is achieving a healthy work/life balance an attainable goal but workers and businesses alike see the rewards. When workers are balanced and happy, they are more productive, take fewer sick days, and are more likely to stay in their jobs.”

Luckily, advancements in cloud-based technology like those in AccuLynx roofing software can help contractors re-establish that balance by giving them access to the information they need, while providing time savings that they can invest back into their personal life.

Emails, Texts, Phone Calls – All in One Place

Maintaining communication with your office is a crucial part of running a roofing business. But when that communication is spread out over emails from your accounting department, texts from your foreman, and phone calls from your project manager it can all get a little distracting.

Activity feeds and production dashboards can bring together all of the correspondence and data that you need to run your business and collate it into one simplified location with everything you need to know and see in one place.

Eliminate Extra Trips to the Office

When you’re in the field all day, it can be difficult to find the time to stop and check on the status of your other projects, file your paperwork and catch up on your emails – which often means a trip back to the office after an already long day.

When your office is cloud-based, software platforms give roofers comprehensive access to their important files, including estimates, signed contracts, warranties, and more. When roofers can access, edit, and submit their paperwork digitally, they can avoid that extra trip to the office.

Something on Your Mind?

Have you ever felt completely monopolized by work even at the oddest hours of the night or even on vacation? As a business owner or manager, it’s probably hard to focus when you’ve got a nagging question or just want to check one more thing…

Mobile apps let you check in on your job progress or stay up to date with your communication. Skim the Activity Feed, do a quick review of your job statuses and get the peace of mind you need quickly without letting it stop your day.

Get Things Done Right the First Time

Roofers often need to fill out a lot of paperwork on the job site. When you’re collecting contact information, insurance details, measurements and photos of the damages over and over, it can be easy to miss a form field, misspell a name, or even submit the wrong material order for a job.

Smart templates can pre-populate job information for you so that you save time creating estimates and contracts. When you create all of your paperwork within a job file, paperwork isn’t misfiled or misplaced, and all of your information is the same across your documentation, ensuring you won’t have mistakes that need correcting later.

Having a healthy balance between a home life and work is a crucial part of your business. Remember,

“Your work-life balance will determine your career and life successes, so make sure you take the time to focus on each role and balance them accordingly.”

Source: AccuLynx

Keeping Up with Roofing Technology in 2019: Mobile Applications & Software Integrations

Posted on

A Q&A session with Lynn Foster, RT3 Member and Director of Operations for AccuLynx.

By Kate Foster.

New technology is continuing to shape the roofing industry, but it can be difficult for contractors to evaluate and implement the right solutions for their business.

There are many options to consider, but specifically for small to medium roofing companies, AccuLynx Director of Operations, Lynn Foster, believes growth can be achieved by focusing on mobile applications and software integrations.

Mobile Applications:

From cell phones, to tablets, to e-readers, there really is an app for everything.

Of course, the next place they are taking over is the business world, and that includes the roofing industry. The ability to work out of the office or while on a job-site saves companies time and money as well as providing flexibility for both employees and customers.

What are some apps that roofers should be using the field?

Roofers should be using the apps that help them do their job more efficiently. CRM mobile apps (like AccuLynx), aerial measurements, tracking expenses, time clocks, PDF scanners, notes, call recording – all of these individually can make contractors more productive.

How do CRM’s with mobile applications like AccuLynx help roofing businesses?

Roofers no longer need to rely on their paper files to get access the information they need. They don’t even need to carry around a laptop. Having shared access to all of your estimates, aerial measurements, material orders, contracts, warranties – all in one place – means you’re never digging for the information you need.

When your business information can be transferred instantaneously from device to device, person to person, you eliminate down-time and ensure that you’re never working off of outdated information.

What is a real-life example?

Let’s say you’re on the job, and a homeowner has a question about a change order they placed. But, you don’t have the paper copy with you. While this may have once caused a problem, necessitating someone to go to the office and pick up a copy, it is no problem when you have mobile access to your office. Being able to access all of the documentation associated with a job right from your phone gives roofers the ability to answer homeowner questions, check material delivery schedules, find insurance information – everything, right at your fingertips.

Software Integrations:

The other upcoming technology trend for the roofing industry is software integration. Now that many roofing technology companies, such as AccuLynx, SkyMeasure, EagleView, and SalesRabbit have emerged and found their footing, they have begun to partner to create platforms that fulfill all your roofing needs. Just like a toolbox, these partnerships combine countless uses, from organizing your information and directly ordering supplies to taking aerial measurements and improving your sales techniques, into to one easy to use kit.

Aside from having all of your tools in one spot, the biggest benefit of integration is the efficiency it creates. When all of the companies you use are integrated, you can electronically share information between them, eliminating the need to re-enter information into each different platform. Automated processes also help you cut down on errors because information gets directly transferred from one application to another. Not only does this improve your accuracy, but it also saves you the time you would have wasted locating and fixing the mistakes.

What are the challenges roofers are facing when it comes to technology?

One of the greatest challenges regarding technology in the roofing industry is getting people to convert. Many people, especially those in the older generation, are wary of making the switch. They claim that the pen and paper methods they have used for years work fine. However, these are the people who will start to get passed by as the competition adopts new technology that makes them more efficient, and ultimately, more profitable.

How can roofers start to adopt technology?

If you are still concerned about the transition to technology, it can help to start out small. Decide what you want the technology to do for you, whether it be organize your files, enable you to make direct orders from suppliers, or manage your business more efficiently, and start with that. Once you get used to that part, you can start adding in more and more. This way, it will not seem as overwhelming as it would if you did it all at once.

Any more advice?

It is important to make sure you are committed – only embracing limits the potential that technology can give you. Partially committing won’t result in the benefits you are hoping for and can only do so much in helping you stay ahead of the competition. Fully committing is sure to skyrocket you to success and profit.

Staying ahead the competition is a priority for any roofing business. Who doesn’t want to be the best at what they do and reap the profits from it? Right now, that means taking advantage of technology. With the flexibility, savings in time and money, and the boost in efficiency that technology provides, it would be difficult to not rise above everyone else.

Source: AccuLynx

Why your construction company should break up with e-mail and replace it with Slack

Posted on

By Tom Whitaker, Harness and RT3 Board Member.

Why are there so many darn emails?

Since it came of age in the mid-1990’s, email has been the most heavily used communications tool in business.  Over 269 BILLION emails are sent and received worldwide each day and the average office worker receives somewhere around 121 emails per day.  Emails were useful because they allow for (usually) short concise exchanges with co-workers, clients, and more.  But is email still the best method for all types of communication?  Might there be better tools out there?  Finally, what would be the advantages for construction companies in particular that choose those different tools?

The average employee spends 40% of their working week dealing with internal emails which add no value to the business.

Do a quick scan of your inbox.  How many of your email messages are conversations amongst your team?  How many of them are communications with outsiders like suppliers or clients?  Independent research by Atos Origin highlighted that the average employee spends 40% of their working week dealing with internal emails which add no value to the business. In short, your employees might only start working on anything of value from Wednesday each week.  US-based studies by Siemens Group point to the value of this “lost” time.  They estimated that a company with 100 employees loses the equivalent of $528,443 each year.

Organizations with effective communication are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers.

Since email is the primary communications tool for most companies, if a company has a problem keeping workers engaged, they MUST consider that the method of their communications could be a contributing factor.   A lack of engagement certainly seems to be a factor.  According to a 2015 Gallup study, only 32% of US employees feel engaged with their companies.  This disengagement leads to poor productivity, high turnover, and what could be aptly described as a negative company culture.  A separate study found that moving a “disengaged” employee over to “engaged” could add over $13,000 in value to your company.  In the construction sector, where labor shortages are rampant, the need to keep workers engaged is even more important.  Companies must strive to improve communication if they want to attract & retain engaged workers.  And it’s not even just about engagement.  Organizations with effective communication are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers.

In 2013, a small Vancouver, Canada based company called Tiny Speck decided to stop development on a failed online video game and instead launch an innovative chat-based communications tool they had built to facilitate communications between their Canadian & US teams.  Called, “Slack” as an acronym for “Searchable Log of All Conversation & Knowledge”, the service grew to become one of the fastest growing products in the history of software.  Slack is now in use by over 8 million people every day.

“The world is in the very early stages of a 100-year shift in how people communicate, and we’re determined to push the boundaries,” said their founder & CEO, Steward Butterfield.

Slack is a cloud-based communication tool so it works on all types of devices and allows teams to communicate with each other by sending short messages to the whole team, subsets of the team, or individuals.  Over the past few years, messages have become much richer than just text and Slack is now used to exchange documents, images, and other information seamlessly.

Teams across the world have found that Slack helps them:

  • Collaborate online just like they would in person.
  • Bring the right people and information together in one place.
  • Communicate efficiently, stay connected, and get things done faster.

At Harness, we use Slack to focus our internal communications around “channels,” a core feature of Slack.  For instance, we have a channel for discussions between our development team, a channel for marketing, and a channel to collaborate on customer issues.  We even have a channel where we post our latest sales wins.  Channels can be either public, meaning they’re available to anyone in your organization or they can be private.  Generally though, Slack works best when the majority of communication happens in public.  Channels all have one thing in common; they contain the entire message history of the group in a searchable archive.  This means, for example, that any new member of our “development” channel could get insights from past discussions or search to find a specific topic of discussion without having to ask a colleague.  When a more specific conversation is needed, team members can direct message each other, start a video chat, or connect via phone right from within the app.

Slack integrates with nearly everything which makes it even more valuable.  For example, our “new-deals” channel at Harness is populated with messages automatically whenever our CRM system records a won opportunity.  Sharing good news has never been easier.

Slack in a Construction Context

Slack’s early adopters included digital agencies, software companies, and other “high-tech” industries but that doesn’t mean it isn’t also a great tool for construction companies.  How many of your company’s internal discussions revolve around individual projects?  If you use Slack, each project could have its own “channel”.  All discussions for that project now have a central location accessible to anyone on your team.  Things you might put into Slack could include:

·       Change order details & approvals

·       Daily progress photos

·       Copies of submittals, plans, or other documents

·       Production issues that need resolving with input from others

Slack makes sure these conversations are easy to have and that each team member is aware of the outcome.  No need to worry about not including someone on an email chain.  The fact that some of your team will be in the field and some others in the office doesn’t mean sacrificing quality of communication.

Let’s say that there needs to be a heavy discussion surrounding an issue that could cause significant delays or cost increases on a project.  The foreman on site could initiate a video chat that could include the project manager, superintendent, or even the owner.  Each of those team members could be in a different location.  The details of the discussion could be recorded and posted in that projects Slack channel so that it could be referred back to later by anyone who wasn’t on the initial call.

Oh Yeah…It’s FREE!!

Probably the greatest thing about Slack is that you can start using it for free. Unlike some “free” products, you’ll get all the features that you need to experience the power of Slack. When you’re ready the paid plans start at $6.67 per user per month. With those plans, you get a longer searchable history and some more integration options, along with the group calling & screen sharing. Slack is definitely worth it in my opinion. But I’m not the only one that feels that way…

Construction companies are made up of teams in the same way as tech companies like Harness. So why can’t we use the same tools for internal communications? Better employee engagement, more complete communications, better productivity. These are some of the many reasons why break up with email and try Slack.

You can create a free account at www.Slack.com.

Source: Harness

The ROI of Roofing Reports: How Understanding Your Data Can Impact Your Bottom Line

Posted on

By Michelle Mittelman, Acculynx.

CRM platforms have evolved into a critical tool for roofers and exterior contractors when it comes to managing and organizing the processes associated with owning and running a service-based contracting business. Expanded features have given roofers the ability to create estimates and contracts, manage production calendars, order measurements and materials, and communicate more effectively across teams.

All of this functionality yields an overwhelming amount of job data that is collected and stored within a CRM. However, most roofing CRM’s offer little to no customization of reporting features, making it difficult to garner insight, visualize and disseminate this information to their teams. As a result, in an effort to combat this lack of data accessibility, roofers often run multiple reports across several platforms in order to see the information they need.

The ability to structure, customize and analyze data within a CRM is the most important tool that a roofer can leverage to make actionable decisions, strategize future production and gain a competitive edge.

Every company is different; roofers service different markets, use different materials and offer various additional exterior trades. The data that is important to one business may not have as great an impact on another when it comes to making decisions that affect the bottom line.

The ideal format of data output and the way that information is analyzed and applied to overall business strategy is so varied, that roofers cannot always rely on static reports to see viable results.

Reporting solutions for roofers need to be flexible.

The ability to create detailed reports, as well as the ability to manipulate the way that the data is grouped, calculated, displayed and shared needs to be customizable.

For example, a company may need to create a sales report for different material lines, or even get as granular as shingles sold by color. Other companies may need to report on the ROI of shingle recycling programs, or rebate offers year over year in order to better understand their overall performance.

Roofers need to be able to see their data to understand it.

The ability for roofers to easily visualize their data is another critical function of reporting. Dashboards can help roofers quickly see and understand high level key performance indicators. The ability to customize dashboards for specific teams or set permissions allows everyone to understand and measure their own success in correlation to the company.

Data should not live in a silo.

The data compiled in your CRM is only useful if it’s being shared with the people who need to see and understand the information. The ability to automatically share detailed reports, dashboards and analytics with your project managers, team leads and sales are critical when it comes to providing transparency and aligning department goals with those of your business. When key employees have access to these reports, they are better able to make adjustments to their strategies, analyze employee performance metrics, and identify existing issues and opportunities.

Successful roofers see the value that comes from understanding business performance. The ongoing ability to monitor reports drives meaningful changes, and ultimately contributes to revenue growth.

What is a Sales CRM and Why Should You Care?

Posted on

If you don’t have a sales CRM in place, you’re leaving a lot of potential money on the table.

By Ryan Groth.

A sales CRM (customer relationship manager) system can tell you how much work you can expect to come in the next week, month or quarter. It gives roofing contractors the ability to define sales processes and measure the stages of each potential contract. Sales CRM programs also give you reliable reporting to make the right decisions and predict the future. Wouldn’t you rather “know” than “guess?” Making sales predictable so that you have enough work for your crews to do is important, but if you don’t have a sales CRM in place you’re also leaving a lot of potential money on the table. Leads are slipping through the cracks due to mismanagement. Did you know that the first company to contact a lead has a 238 percent higher conversation rate than the second to contact? Companies on average take 19 hours to respond via email and 61 hours to respond by phone, according to a recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Given these overwhelming circumstances, there are some key questions you need to be asking: Do you know that following up is important? What are you doing about it? Do you know that if you take managing leads seriously that you’ll smoke your competition?

The problem is salespeople and estimators are telling you one thing, but the reality is they’re doing another. This means that you aren’t in control and you need to keep a closer eye on your projects. Without a good sales CRM, you’ll find that you’re unable to see trends at a glance and see who and what’s really performing well. That makes it very difficult, if not nearly impossible to answer the following key questions directly impacting your company’s day-to-day: How can your sales manager manage his team objectively without knowing what your closing ratio is? How do you know where to spend your marketing dollars, or is it just a guessing game? What can you anticipate in future sales without understanding your pipeline? Are you thinking that you can buy that next big piece of equipment, building or two more service trucks based on hope? It’s better to really know.

Think of it this way, would you hand-weld an entire TPO roof just because you happen to already own a heat gun, or would you rather do the field laps with a robot? A sales CRM is like the robot. A heat gun is like most database software.

In a sales CRM, one must be able to insert and measure their identifiable key performance indicators, or in layman’s terms, each step of the sales steps. Sales managers also need to be paying attention to reports like sales pipeline, closing ratios, selling cycle, achievement against goals for sales and bid volume, lead source tracking on a per-salesperson, per-division basis. If you’re not keeping track then how can you hold your team accountable to performing the right activities to close more deals? It’s better to “know” than to “guess.”

So, is a CRM all about the sales manager after all? No, CRM’s can be user-friendly even for roofers and can actually help sales people sell. Sales reports are a huge pain in the neck for salespeople because they get paid to produce revenue. But if the system can actually help them sell more and keep them focused on the right priorities, everyone wins.
So, if you knew your competition was following up with every lead and tracked every step of the sales process, would you want to compete against that guy?

Ryan Groth is president of the Florida-based Sales Transformation Group, Inc. Over the past decade, he’s helped roofing companies from around the country improve their technological capabilities and transform their sales organizations. Reach him at rgroth@salestransformationgroup.com.

Note: This article first published in Roofing Contractor Magazine and can be viewed here.

Using roofing software to create more accurate estimates and material orders

Posted on

CRM software with real-time supplier pricing reduces ordering mistakes and homeowner distrust.

By Michelle Mittelman, AccuLynx.

When roofers are in the field assessing storm damage, talking to homeowners, and providing work estimates, one of the most important factors that they rely on is knowing the price of their materials. Every roofer has a preference of who he orders from; and knowing what materials he needs, and how much they cost are a huge part of generating an estimate.

When time is of the essence, a roofer may choose to rely on a template to provide a quote to a homeowner – but what if, unbeknownst to the sales rep, there has been a change in material availability or pricing? That estimate price may change significantly when it is processed as an order, prompting adjustments that could potentially anger the homeowner, and make the roofer appear untrustworthy.

Roofers who order material supplies through a CRM platform like AccuLynx, with a direct integration to a trusted material supplier see more accurate pricing, less mistakes in material ordering, and eliminate the need to handwrite the same information over and over across different documentation.

Using Real-Time Pricing in Your Estimates:

At the start of any job, roofers build estimates based on several factors, including the materials they use, and the costs assigned to those products.

A roofer that has digital access to real-time pricing within his estimates saves valuable time searching for the current price and availability of each individual line item. Templates in AccuLynx that pull from your local branch, with your negotiated rates give roofers an instant, accurate material cost that they can apply to their estimates, eliminating the guesswork, and potential surprises down the line.

CRM platforms with material supplier integrations allow you to complete jobs faster, meaning your company can take on more projects and make more profit.

Order Your Roofing Materials Directly from Your Estimate

Having accurate estimates translates into placing accurate orders. By converting your estimate to a material order through an integration, roofers eliminate human error, provide a digital record from one document to the next, and save time transferring the data from one platform to another. There is no time wasted between steps.

Roofers can feel confident that there will be no surprises in either availability or price when they order materials through their connected CRM platform. This proficiency improves a company’s reputation, leading to more business, and higher customer satisfaction.

Note: This article was first published on AccuLynx’s blog and can be viewed here.

Improve your sales speed: 5 ways to sell more jobs with fewer site visits

Posted on

By Kate Foster, AccuLynx.

Software for aerial measurements, templates, automation. E-signatures and CRM produces more profits.

During the busy storm season, everyone in the field is looking for ways to improve their sales speed. Faster sales means you have time for more jobs, and having more jobs leads to more profits, and more profits benefit your company as a whole. However, increasing your sales speed can result in sloppy paperwork, lack of attention to critical details, and a lower quality experience for the homeowner – all of which can hurt your business reputation.

In an ideal environment, your sales staff would be able to make fewer site visits for a job, reduce the amount of time and resources spent on each project, and effectively speed up your sales.

But how do you sell more jobs while at the same time reducing the amount of site visits you take?

Use Aerial Measurements to Save Time During Estimation

One way you can improve your sales speed while making fewer job site visits is to use aerial measurements rather than manual ones.

By pre-ordering aerial measurement reports for areas with storm damage, your sales teams will already have access to accurate measurements that they can apply directly to their estimates, saving time up on the roof, and creating paperwork. CRM systems like AccuLynx work with trusted providers like EagleView and SkyMeasure to directly input data into your job file, so your teams come to their appointments prepared.

Accurate measurements helps sales teams avoid lost information or incorrectly entered data so your staff won’t have to make any trips back to the site to remeasure.

Use Templates to Save Time Filling Out the Details

Every roofing business has their own standard set of paperwork, and oftentimes that means your sales teams are working off of a template. Templates are a great way to make sure nothing is forgotten – but what if they skip a section in haste, or accidentally overwrite a previous document?

Using digital templates like the AccuLynx SmartDocs feature allows roofers to create custom, digital templates from the documents they use most on any project. Admins can set mandatory fields, like phone number or Insurance Company, so your field reps can’t submit the file without first filling out the important details.

Using templates means no information gets forgotten and no follow-up phone calls or excess trips to the field are needed.

Avoid Data Re-Entry with Automation

Using digital templates also means once you’ve entered the information once – you’re done! These templates also have the ability to be auto-populate. When you convert your estimate to a contract, you’re not wasting time filling out the same information over and over – they will automatically fill in the assigned data from your CRM for any job you use that template on. The ability to complete your projects faster means you can focus on the next sale.

eSign Your Legal Documents

Homeowners want to know they’re getting a good deal, so you can expect they’ll be getting several quotes for a job. You can take the stress off your sales teams schedules by implementing a legal eSignature component to your paperwork so once a decision is made, they don’t have to drive across town to get a simple scribble.

Sending your Estimate Packet to a customer via email is faster – customers know where to sign and initial, and once they’re done, it’s returned to your job file so your office team can start scheduling the material drop-off and crews.

And, if your sales staff is so great that the homeowner wants to sign on the spot? eSignatures signed on tablets or mobile devices are equally as effective and legally binding.

Have a Process in Place to Streamline Your Sales Pipeline

Having a sales process in place can also help you speed up your sales. A step by step system ensures your sales team knows exactly what to do after each milestone during a job, minimizing time spent figuring out what to do next and allowing them to work more efficiently.

A pre-set process also makes sure everyone is on the same page, facilitating communication and eliminating potential confusion. This allows your sales to proceed faster because everyone is clear on what needs to be done and you do not need to spend time clearing up miscommunications. CRMs can provide your company with a sales process through pipeline features, which guides a job through the various steps of a project from the time it is a lead to the time the job is closed and paid for.

There are many ways to cut out inefficiencies in your sales process without letting your quality and professionalism suffer. Finding the right balance for your company can help shave hours of redundancy off your sales team days, allowing them to visit more homes, make more sales and deliver more profit to your roofing business.

Note: This article was first published on AccuLynx’s blog and can be viewed here.

3 Ways to Improve Communication on Your Jobsite with Drones

Posted on

By Devon Tackles.

Keeping tabs on a construction project is no small task. Every job has many moving parts. From tracking progress to managing subcontractors, communicating across teams can be challenging — no matter the size of your organization. The good news is, by spending less than an hour each week mapping your jobsite with drones, you’ll gain an entire toolkit to help you and your team work more efficiently, make more informed decisions, and communicate with ease.

Drone maps and models not only provide an aerial view of your project, but each map includes a rich set of data that can be used to further measure and analyze just about anything on a site. Here are three ways you can improve communication on your jobsite with the use of drones and aerial maps.

  1. Project Monitoring and Site Inspection

DroneDeploy, an industry leader in drone mapping software, discovered that 60% of their customers make maps weekly. This regular, overhead view is invaluable when it comes to tracking progress and inspecting for safety issues on construction projects. “Drone maps give my team a bird’s eye view of the site, which looks a lot different than being on the ground,” explained Matthew Forster, Project Engineer for Choate Construction. “It gives them a full picture.”

Although nothing replaces boots on the ground, weekly drone maps can significantly reduce the amount of time you spend walking an entire site for the purposes of inspection and monitoring. For more advanced oversight, you can import and overlay site plans right in the DroneDeploy interface, or export your maps into industry software like BIM, GIS, and CAD. You can easily export your data in the format you need or use open APIs to sync your data with everyday tools.

Contract Project Manager Nick Johnson of Tilt Rock of Texas does this to help him manage large, custom home projects. Homeowners make frequent changes to house footprints, models, and orientation, so Johnson overlays drone maps with utility, wastewater, and communications plans to help him can catch conflicts with services before they actually happen and redirect them at minimal cost.

“Aerial imagery identifies conflicts I wouldn’t normally see from the ground level. Now, I find out about conflicts in a matter of days, instead of months.”- Nick Johnson, Project Manager, Tilt Rock of Texas

  1. Take Volume and Area Measurements, Estimate Stockpiles, and Monitor Earthwork

Every location on a drone map is geotagged, so you can take basic measurements almost instantly, from any device. For situations that require centimeter-level accuracy, ground control points (GCPs) can be added to a map. These marked targets help mapping software accurately position your map in relation to the real world and afford the accuracy needed to make precise volumetric and linear measurements.

“I can tell how many square feet of roof we’ve put down, how much square footage of concrete is left to pour,” Ryan Moret, Field Solutions Manager at McCarthy Building Companies, said. “If we’re trying to figure out truck access, we can measure the width of a road or gate or how much room we need to clear out for material to make the site clean and organized.”

  1. Share Insights, Align Teams, and Inform Stakeholders

Drones make collaboration and information sharing, both internally and externally, easier than ever before. Cloud-based platforms make it easy to share annotated maps between team members, or keep external stakeholders up-to-speed on the progress of a project.

In contractor meetings, having a clear display of any current site issues is a powerful communication tool. Likewise, having an up-to-date drone map helps distribute information efficiently, even among large teams. Streamline the decision-making process by referencing a drone map any time changes need to be made to a project.

McCarthy Building Companies uses drones in many high-tech ways, but at the end of the day, “paper is still the common denominator for jobsites,” says Moret. On every McCarthy site, the wall of the job trailer is covered with weekly drone maps posted in sequence, giving anyone who walks into the room a clear picture of the project’s progress over time, as well as a snapshot of any current issues on the site.

“The trades love it, being able to walk up to the wall and see nine weeks of construction photos,” Moret said. “They pull these up in every sub meeting, every owner meeting. We have data from that week to show contractors, ‘hey, the site’s a mess; you guys need to go clean it up.’ You can see rebar spread out all over the place, so there’s no arguing. They see it for what it’s worth.”

BuiltWorlds partnered with DroneDeploy to bring you this article. You can read the full version of this piece here.