Suffolk Construction, a privately-held building contractor based in Boston with branch offices around the U.S., was looking for a way to streamline its field processes during the construction of hotels, hospitals, schools, etc. John Gillis, a project superintendent, tells IncTechnology how tablet PCs helped improve accuracy and save time fostering communications back to the central office.
Elizabeth Wasserman: Why did you decide to invest in tablet PCs?
John Gillis: During our construction projects, we have superintendents or engineers in the field go room to room to identify all the problems. They identify anything deficient that needs to be fixed. They put this list together – it’s called the “punch list.” Typically, we would do this on paper and assign numbers to each room and then bring this back to the main office and enter it into an Excel spreadsheet. We would sort it by the room or trade that needs to be doing the work – like plumbers or mechanical contractors or carpenters – and print it out and hand it over to them. It used to take a lot of time.
Wasserman: So what did you decide to do?
Gillis: We started using the tablets on some of our projects. The project I worked on was the Liberty Hotel in Boston. It has 300 guest rooms. We used multiple tablet PC’s from Motion outfitted with Vela Systems’ software. At the Liberty Hotel, we were able to use it to create mobile punch lists and work lists. We would create lists out in the field on the computer and not have to write them down or enter them into Excel. We would do it all in the field on a tablet and automatically sync up with the Vela Systems server and distribute all the information we recorded in real time to everyone who needed it. With the tablet, we could minimize the amount of time spent in each room.
Wasserman: How does it work?
Gillis: The tablet PC comes with a stylus pen. If you want to tag an item for repair, you can write it with the pen and it will convert your handwriting into text. But for most of the stuff that we use it for, we had already created a list of construction codes. We utilized a drop down list in Vela’s program for repair codes and repair items. You can customize that list in the field to add and modify repair codes at your convenience.
Wasserman: Did you see any measurable results?
Gillis: There is a lot more accuracy in the location of the items that need to be repaired. The software program also has a viewer program that allows you to work with a PDF picture of the room while you’re walking through it. You tag the items by putting down a digital thumb tack in the precise location, say there is a scratch on the window. Then you just go to the drop down list and tap on “scratch on window.” You can keep using the same PDF as you go from room to room. It is similar to writing on a clear overlay of a drawing for each separate room only it is recorded digitally. So there is a lot more accuracy. It also saves a lot of time. It’s typically saving two or three hours per day for each person, given the time they would have had to spend double entering it – once in the field and once back at the office. They can also pull up the construction plans for the job on the tablet, rather than have to go running back to the office. We’re using the system now on eight different projects. There are usually multiple tablets on each job site, depending on the size of the job.
