Builders are, without a doubt, very busy people, and with that being said, efficiency is necessary. But what about effectiveness? While being efficient means adequately producing the intended or expected result, in contrast, effectiveness means performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort.
The late management consultant Peter Drucker believed that ‘efficiency is doing things right, while to be effective is doing the right thing’. When growing a company, efficiency can support profit, but effectiveness drives long-term growth.
Support for Builders
It’s all too true for many in the residential building industry, as reported in HIA’s annual member survey, that that the price and availability of building materials and skilled trades remains a number-one concern for the industry across the country. It’s expected that these concerns will continue to be the greatest pressure points on residential building businesses over the next 12 months. The flow-on effect of all this change is putting effective business activities in jeopardy.
So, how do you be effective in a time of constant flux? In a tight labour and skills market, and at a time the sector needs price and margin visibility, revolutionary platform utecture has been designed to help fill the gaps with rapid design, price and sales solutions.
Twin for the win
The utecture platform is equivalent to a complete virtual building team in the cloud. It consists of pricing/estimation, building code checks, house siting, drafting/drawing, and (3D) CAD/plan production. These features enable all these tasks to be completed with speed and precision.
The utecture platform uses what is described in the industry as ‘digital twin’ technology. In construction, a ‘digital twin’ is an exact replica of the entire project, or a virtual model. These next-generation as-built drawings can help ensure buildings meet sustainability, efficiency or regulatory requirements.
This kind of technology also enables builders to make informed decisions based on facts, rather than assumptions, about how a product should perform. Perhaps more importantly, a digital twin can help predict potential failures before they happen and suggest ways to prevent those failures.
The entire utecture solution is run directly from the cloud to your laptop. Builders can customise back-end workflows to suit their business and processes.
Utecture is not only a great quantification and design tool, but it’s also a fantastic sales asset. Clients can visualise their home, make plan and material changes (internal/external), and then re-visualise those changes in seconds, along with obtaining an accurate price directly from the cloud.
Utecture can also pre-load your standard plan book directly onto the utecture platform. Here you can guide clients through your house range and then select, adjust and make changes and alterations in real-time. You can engage with your client at a time and place that suits them without being physically present.
A customised client quote letter can also be generated in seconds to help get your client to contract as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Further, the platform is extremely easy to use and accessible 24/7 by anyone with a login. Team members can also collaborate on plans and projects in real-time.
When changes occur
With the utecture platform, suppliers, pricing and margins are visible throughout the planning process. Pricing can be pre-set to account for future increases, with any changes in costs or margins easily updated.
Material or product unavailability is no doubt a source of stress for builders who are thinking about the impact this may have on their projects. However, the program can help resolve these issues since users can change plans and material selections in seconds.
A quick price and material adjustment is all it takes, which user can then be followed up by a few simple steps to produce take-offs/schedule of costs and full 3D CAD renders. The straightforward process allows for clear communication of any changes with the client.
And in this climate, any tool that can help a project get from contract to completion more effectively must surely be seen as ‘doing the right thing’.