A color-coded screenshot of the estimate gives the foreman and c…
“Smart” grinders
Gressette also has GPS on his grinders. They’re retrofitted to record and store metrics, including run times, rpms, forward speeds, square feet per hour, operator start and stop times, and amperage. Plus, he can view his machines live.
“I can run my grinder from my phone and I can see what the operator is doing. My grinder will send me an alert if an operator tries to push the grinder and stretch scratches out, which would leave the job with scratches.”
At the end of each day, the data is transferred to the home office through www.grindertex.com. The website and machine retrofit, owned by JP Technologies LLC and Ardor Consulting, uses programmable logic controllers, software, and mobile technology to automate the process of concrete grinding and polishing. As of press time, Lavina series 25 grinders can be retrofitted with this product, but the companies are working to provide retrofits for other models.
Turning daily reports into usable data
Each day an office employee fills out an expense report based on the field report data sent from the jobsite. Costs are categorized by task. “If the guys used a credit card for anything, I want to know right now, not at the end of the month. And I want to know what task it was assigned to.”
At the end of each job, the office employee generates a “master job time card” that totals up hours worked by employee and task. It includes the estimator’s projected manpower hours and calculates both estimated job production rates per hour and actual rates. This allows easy comparison between projections and actual work, which also helps to fine-tune future project estimates. The daily field reports can be checked to discover why any estimated task times were not met.
It may cost a little more to track jobsite data, says Gressette, but “I know by 9:30 a.m. what the previous day’s numbers are, and I can make decisions from there.”
The consequences of not tracking your data can be devastating. “I lost a business in ’92 because I didn’t have the data to help me make the right decisions. That wasn’t fair to my employees or to my family.”
