Construction Contractors Improve Efficiency
With .NET-Based Mobile Solution
M J Gleeson needed an on-site work-efficiency assessment tool
to help the company gain real-time awareness of the productivity
of its contractors and other resources. The construction
contractor has successfully completed a preliminary field
trial of COMPASS-IP. This solution, based on the Microsoft
.NET Compact Framework, was built especially for the construction
industry and is helping Gleeson measure work activity against
industry norms to identify sources of waste and respond
swiftly to inefficiencies.
Mobile Workforce Challenge
M J Gleeson is one of the UK's major general building and
engineering contractors and the leading contractor in the
UK water industry. It has long-term partnering contracts
with most of the country’s water authorities.
The contractor is always at the forefront of new initiatives
in the construction and property industries, such as those
relating to partnering and quality. It was recently included
in the FTSE's socially responsible investment index series,
FTSE4Good, for its commitment to corporate responsibility.
In The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For list,
Gleeson was ranked number one employer in the construction
industry.
Gleeson’s
work for water authorities includes designing, constructing
and commissioning multi-million pound water and waste water
treatment works, pumping stations and service reservoirs.
In late 2002, Gleeson was contracted by the Caldervale Waste
Water Treatment Works (WWTW) – a division of the UK’s
Yorkshire Water Authority – to carry out essential
refurbishment work on one of the Works’ digesters.
As a leader in its field, Gleeson is always looking for new
ways to increase productivity and improve the efficiency
of its workforce and processes. The Caldervale WWTW project
was an ideal opportunity for the company’s managers
to trial a new, on-site work activity assessment tool.
Gleeson wanted to demonstrate to Yorkshire Water Authority that,
despite their long-term relationship, it was not standing
still but instead constantly looking for new ways to become
more efficient. The company knew that construction sites
can be up to 40 per cent inefficient, and needed a solution
that would help managers locate these inefficiencies and
reduce them.
Mobile Working Solution
Over a four-month period, Gleeson trialled COMPASS-IP, a
handheld solution that has been built specifically for the
construction, utility and maintenance sectors by longtime
Microsoft Partner, Information Systems Associates Ltd.
COMPASS-IP is an end-to-end Microsoft® .NET solution, built using
a beta version of Microsoft’s Compact Framework for
the .NET environment. It measures and records work activity
levels on site on a handheld computer or Pocket PC.
Data, including the number of workers on site, which workers are
idle and which are adding value, is inputted easily into
standard reports on the device. And since data is captured
in real time, errors are kept to a minimum.
The site data is then gathered through a Microsoft Visual C#™
client application and exported securely back to a central
Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 database, via Microsoft
SQL CE2 and Microsoft Active Synch.
COMPASS-IP comes with seven standard reports, which can be viewed via
the Navigator-based COMPASS-IP Web site. Alternatively,
users can easily create customised reports to extract the
exact information they need from the database. Reports are
exported from the database to the Web site using Microsoft
ASP.NET.
Thus the information stored in the SQL database can be viewed
by all relevant parties, and assessed according to industry
standards and project key performance indicators (KPIs).
Benefits
-
Time/Cost Savings and Productivity Gains
COMPASS-IP gave Gleeson insight into the productivity
of its Caldervale labour force, both direct and subcontracted.
The company was able to observe three different work
teams on an hourly basis across the trial. It found
that the majority of the inefficiencies that emerged
were due to employee absence from the workplace –
for instance, subcontractors being pulled off site to
do other jobs, or simply not turning up to work at all.
The company was able to address these issues swiftly,
before too much time and money was wasted. At the same
time it was able to elicit better productivity levels
from its employers and resources, without the requirement
of any additional outlay.
Gleeson has managed to reduce the inefficiencies of
its construction sites by up to 80 per cent. The main
saving has been labour time, and was possible because
managers were able to access accurate reports and swiftly
analyse where procedures could be improved
- Supply Chain Efficiency
COMPASS-IP
enabled Gleeson’s management staff to focus on
production times for the whole life cycle of the project
in terms of man hours, outputs and production plans.
In particular, Donna Rady, Project Manager, Gleeson,
says: “COMPASS-IP highlighted the inefficiency
of specialist contractors travelling long distances
to the workplace – and it easily quantified the
inefficiency.”
The solution also allowed Gleeson to view cumulative
resource graphs, which were monitored throughout the
trial. Gleeson found that it was far easier to get to
this level of data using COMPASS-IP than by using more
complicated planning packages.
The degree of visibility afforded by COMPASS-IP meant
the construction company could make important changes
to its integrated supply chain, delivering a more streamlined,
efficient, workflow.
- Improved Management Reporting
The COMPASS-IP site enabled trained Gleeson managers to
assess their data against key performance indicators
(KPIs) for the project, and against industry norms.
Managers could then swiftly establish work efficiency
patterns and identify causes of waste. Crucially, where
under-performance was recorded, rapid corrective action
could be taken.
- Robust Environment
Due to the extreme reliability of the .NET Framework
development environment, the COMPASS-IP application
has no uptime issues. It is always available for Gleeson
to use on site, in real time, as it needs to.
- Speed to Market
For Information Systems, the benefit of developing COMPASS-IP
on the Microsoft .NET Framework was clear. No other
technology would have enabled the solution provider
to create the new application and get it to market so
quickly.
Development of COMPASS-IP for the Pocket PC took only
four weeks, and one man year, of effort. This was made
possible by the use of shared code in the integrated
environment of the application’s backend database
and its Web site – whereas previous tools would
have doubled or tripled development time.
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