Wireless Technology Solutions for Construction

Discover how wireless technology can position your construction company for growth.

No other industry’s success is so closely related to being in the field than construction. Whether you are meeting with a client to scope a job, doing a walk-through with a subcontractor or picking up materials, your business thrives when you are close to your customer and even closer to your jobs. And, to get the job done right, you need the right tools.

While the mere mention of construction conjures up visions of hammers and hardhats, the industry is actually among the first to adopt technologies that help shave minutes off a job and add dollars to the bottom line. Today, wireless technology is one of the most important tools in a construction company’s arsenal, and its benefits extend far beyond access to emails, calendars and contacts.

Increase Sales

As an owner, you know your market inside and out. You also know the success of your sales team is driven by staying close to the developers, architects and general contractors who are your business’ lifeline. These are the individuals who ensure you get the chance to bid on every job. As important as salespeople are to your business, they can only cover so much territory and attend so many meetings. By adding a sales force automation solution to your operation, you can improve your sales team’s productivity by keeping them on the road instead of in the office.

A sales force automation solution gives sales representatives access from their mobile phones to all their customer contact information. The solution stores addresses, job titles, phone numbers and personal information allowing sales reps to make the most of every meeting with prospects and customers. The reps can track every phone call, email and meeting made during the course of a day, which is the biggest payoff. They can also check notes from the last meeting, review any commitments and manage the business through the project start date. Sales reps are better prepared resulting in more productive meetings, which helps your company get closer to the preferred vendor list. Plus, all the information captured on the mobile phone is accessible from the office, so you can check the status of every prospect at any time to see how close you are to closing the deal.

The efficiencies of deploying sales force automation applications on your employees’ mobile phones helps you increase the number of jobs your team is bringing in because reps spend less time in the office managing the paperwork.

Improve Efficiency

The challenge becomes managing all the additional work efficiently and effectively. Topping the list of efficiency tools is Push-to-Talk (PTT), the industry standard for on-site communication that gives field personnel instant access to one another. The dispatch nature of PPT is immediacy-a tried and true method of keeping teams in contact when they are on the job.

But the construction owner of today has other wireless options, including mobile hot spots and wireless modems, both of which provide Internet connectivity to laptops or mobile devices-all at costs far below traditional wired connectivity. Mobile hotspots, downloadable on many smart phones, allow you to connect up to five devices to the wireless carrier’s high speed network, which may be the perfect option for temporary connectivity on a jobsite. Mobile broadband on a laptop or Netbook lets job supervisors review change orders or alterations to blueprints while sitting on the tailgate.

Similar to sales force automation, field service management solutions allow you to keep your jobsite team working at maximum efficiency. Ask yourself, “How much time does my field team spend in the office filling out weekly timesheets, and how accurate is their time?” Let’s say your company has 20 field workers who come into the office every Friday to fill out their timecards. The average time off the job may only be 20 minutes per person, but that equals six man-hours per week or 28 man-hours a month spent in the office instead of in the field. Can you afford that much employee downtime? With the mobile timecard feature, which is part of most field service management solutions, your team can log in directly from their wireless phones while in the field. Most solutions also give managers the mapping ability to track where employees were when they logged in. Now your payroll can be accurate to the minute, and you can cut down on wasted time and get back many if not most of those of those lost man-hours.

But timekeeping is just the beginning. Your field management team can download applications to their smart phones or mobile broadband-enabled laptops to complete on-site punch lists or other documents that keep your job on schedule. All this information is captured wirelessly and integrated into your back office accounting software-you can move from stage completion to billing to financial draft faster than ever before.

Field service management solutions also allow you to dispatch crews via wireless work orders or service requests. Your company may have multiple contractors working on different jobs such as drywall, plumbing and cabinetry. With field service management applications, your jobsite supervisor can walk a job; close out the drywall stage with a touch of a button, automatically direct the drywall crew to the next location and include GPS-enabled driving instructions; then notify the carpet subcontractor that he is now needed on this job. Essentially, paperwork becomes out-of-date. Wireless is the new tool to reduce waste and get more done every day.

Protect Your Assets

Wireless technology can also keep your assets working for you. With automated vehicle location solutions, you can monitor trucks, mobile generators and other high-priced assets, including the speed at which they are moving, or protect them when parked by setting up a “geo-fence” that will send notifications if any assets are moved without authorization. This can reduce theft, cut down on gas costs and ensure the safety of your employees and equipment. The real time saver is you don’t have to sit in front of a computer screen to monitor these assets. You can review travel patterns at the end of the day through historical reporting and receive notifications on your mobile phone if equipment is out of place. You can even set automated alerts to show when a door has been unlocked, a truck bed has been raised, or if it is time for an oil change.

Using wireless technology, your sales team is making the most out of every meeting and covering more territory than ever before. Your jobsite crews are using the high speeds of mobile broadband to keep the information flowing between your client and your construction team. You have more insight into where your teams are and what they are doing, which is keeping projects on track and allowing you to finish more jobs faster than ever. You have truly harnessed the power of mobility to be the most technologically advanced, efficient outfit in town and every general contractor and developer has moved you to the top of their vendor lists.

This all sounds pretty good, but the question now is, “What does my company do with this new found power?” How will the ability to get more done faster change how you use your capital, how you expand and what territories you move into. Maybe the five-year plan becomes the one-year plan-wireless solutions can be a key element in taking your construction business to the next level.

Construction Business Owner, December 2010