Comments for Improve Communication Between Field and Office for Better Job Costing at http://www.constructionbusinessowner.com , comment 1 to 1 out of 1 comments http://www.constructionbusinessowner.com Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:40:21 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.constructionbusinessowner.com/topics/technology/improve-communication-between-field-and-office-for-better-job-costing.html#comment-90 Any good system is like a thermostat: it maintains control based on a set of criteria and it meets the needs of its audiences (internal & external). If the thermostat is never turned on, it receives no feedback from the room temperature and can’t control anything, so there has to be feedback. It’s possible your software system only meets the needs of one or a few departments, in which case it’s not user-oriented and will eventually fail. That’s like having the thermostat monitor the temperature and then provide a cooling vent to only one of the rooms that is under its control.It’s also possible that the software requires a lot of maintenance to keep it going perhaps through a lack of automation, redundant inputs, and manually entries. This may provide the control that is needed but it is not cost effective. Back to the thermostat analogy, this is like having a person with a thermometer monitoring the temperature of the inside of the room and having to go down the hall each time to compare that with the set point and then run up to the roof to turn on the compressor. It works, but it is not cost effective. It is common today for contractors to implement software systems (many of them turn out to be Excel spreadsheets) that meet the needs of one or a few departments and then everyone else has to spend the time, money and energy to make that system work, no matter how costly it is. If your company is like the majority that I’ve worked with, the odds are that there is a lot of room for improving the current system by making it work for all in a much more cost effective manner. - A. Larry Aaron CCE PSP CEP AVS Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:45:31 +0100