In 2015 McKinsey published their technology & digitisation adoption report for different industries across the US. The construction industry took second last place with almost no adoption of technology – only just above the agriculture sector. Since then, a lot has changed, especially for mobile. Smartphone adoption has increased, 4G internet coverage has spread, and technology on site has started to become the norm.
Source: McKinsey, 2015,technology & digitisation adoption report
To date, many contractors are working with high-end project management, design and architecture systems. However, operations remains the cumbersome process it has always been, slowed down by manual processes, paperwork and spreadsheets.
Construction contractors are struggling with scheduling compliant workers to the right equipment on site. Communication lines between the office and worksites are messy. Job scheduling & dispatch, timesheets, safety forms, operation manuals, site specific document and job dockets are getting lost on almost every jobsite. Companies roll the dice on compliance management every day because of manual processes, let alone the commercial issues such as accurate and timely invoicing.
Sydney based construction software company Assignar, is an operations platform specifically built for construction contractors. The platform takes the hassle away from resource scheduling & dispatch plus the operational workflows of timesheeting, payroll and invoicing, while ensuring safety compliance. And it is delivered via an App to the workers. “Our system is designed to streamline operations for contractors with 20 to 2,000 workers. No more point solutions, you can run your business on Assignar. We’re proud that so far, workers on 7,000+ sites have been working more safely & efficiently using our Worker app.” said Sean McCreanor, CEO at Assignar.
The cloud based software provider has onboarded several large construction companies, including UGL, Liebherr, Sydney Trains and LendLease. They also count many more sub-contractors working for major GCs and projects as customers too. Features include workforce and asset scheduling & dispatch, timesheet collection, payroll & invoicing automation and mobile data collection for processes such as equipment checklists, pre-start/toolbox meetings, job safety inspections & risk assessments and more.
Perfect Hire, one of the early adopters, manage all the operations of their business on the platform. From initial recruitment & training of staff, to ensuring the correct worker is scheduled and dispatched, right through to collecting a timesheet and other data. All job and project data is collected in a single “bucket” for ease of invoicing and payroll.
“ Managing over 350 employees is a challenge. Being able to guarantee a high quality standard, is how you get more jobs. With Assignar, we ensure the quality of our workers and that they’re sent out with well maintained equipment to the client (on time!). Switching our operations over to Assignar has saved us so much time in our day to day operations. We can keep up to date with compliance and safety, and reduce risk in our business. We can easily manage all our workforce out in the field and keep track of our assets in real-time which is essential. We couldn’t have doubled our business over the past 12 months without Assignar”
– Mateusz Jedruszek, Managing Director, Perfect Hire
Mobile technology is (finally) hitting construction sites
