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Gene Ray Electric (Elizabethtown, Ky.), a 25-year-old contractor
with 35 employees, pursues commercial, industrial, and institutional
work in central Kentucky – on out to the state’s fringes. It even
follows select customers outside the state.
While the company doesn’t perform electrical work
on huge projects, it does pursue interesting jobs. GRE was the
winner of the Independent Electrical Contractor’s 2006 Excellence
Award for industrial projects under $500,000.00.
And the company does all of this – including bidding
work on projects up to $3-4 million in size – using PC Scale
from McCormick Systems.
“I can remember before we brought Scale into the
company,” says Bryan Ray, a project manager for the company (and
Gene Ray’s son). “I began doing all of the counts for my dad when I
was young, back when I was 11 or 12. He let me do all of the counts
– lighting, receptacles, and branch-circuit take-offs. But he didn’t
trust me to do the feeders!
“Then he bought PC Scale. I would guess that was when I
was 13.”
Today, Bryan is 29 years old. He’s still using the Scale
software from McCormick – but he does a lot more these days than
counting everything but feeders.
Scale answers company’s needs
As
a project manager, Bryan doesn’t do just one thing in a
day. “When I start a job, I never get to finish it right
then,” he notes. “There’s always something coming up. The nice thing
with PC Scale is, it lets me come back to exactly where I was – and
start from where I left off.
“Why do we still use it? PC Scale does everything we
need it to do. I can’t find anything that it won’t do that I need it
to do.”
One important thing for GRE is to process estimates
quickly and accurately on projects on which it would like to bid. As
speed is important, and as PcScale is perceived (by others) as a
“starter” system, Bryan has taken a look into other options.
“We’ve had other software vendors call us and want us to
do online demos with them,” he says. “Some of them have nice
features. But all of those features take more time to implement.
“When you’re bidding a lot of work, you need to be able
to get a good, accurate estimate done as quickly as you can. I’ve
personally bid jobs as large as a $4 million high school with PC
Scale. It does everything you want – except, unfortunately, it
doesn’t catch human error.”
Speaking of alternatives, what about McCormick’s 3000,
6000, 8000, and 12000 systems? “I’ve looked at the other versions
that McCormick offers,” Bryan says. “I like the features they have.
But I don’t think we would be able to implement those features on a
regular basis on the jobs we bid.”
GRE's crew on the award-winning
Pearl Hollow project pose with the plaque bestowed on the
company by the Independent Electrical Contractors.
‘The comfort factor’
There’s a comfort factor that many customers find they like with
GRE. “We’ve been in business for 25 years, and we have seven
employees who have been here for 20 years or more,” he says. “So if
a customer hasn’t needed us in four or five years, they are
surprised – and satisfied – that they get to talk to the same
voices, and see the same faces, when they get back to us.”
The same thing goes for PC Scale. Bryan Ray says. “It’s so
easy to create assemblies with this software – you just point and
click. I’ve got maybe 100 assemblies set up that we use in job after
job,” he notes.
“That’s probably the reason we like PC Scale – the
comfort factor, the same as our customers. We know through our own
history of using it. We know that if we use PC Scale, that our
numbers will be good.
“Sure – on any given job, we might not turn out
to be the low bidder. But we know that, if we do get the job, we’ll
be where we need to be to make money.”
See the company's website: www.generayelectric.com.
SAVE THE DATE - April 2-5, 2008
There's a lot more information to come, but we've nailed down the
dates for next year's McCormick Systems User's Conference -- April
2-5 in Tempe, AZ. Watch this space!
Guest
Commentary: DATACOM TOPICS
PoE Switch Rev.
Soars
Here's the complete
text of a post by Jeff Caruso of Network World, one of my
favorite industry writers (see
original here). I've boldfaced the information I especially wanted
everyone to see:
The
market for Ethernet switches swelled to a record $4.8 billion in
the third quarter of this year, with Power-over-Ethernet ports
accounting to a startling percentage of shipments, the Dell'Oro
Group recently revealed.
The appeal of
Power over Ethernet is pretty clear. With PoE, you deliver power
and Ethernet data signal over the same cable, something that
comes in handy for VoIP phones or wireless LAN access points
placed in awkward locations.
That PoE
ports now account for 20% of all Ethernet switch port shipments
worldwide, however, is pretty amazing. Gigabit Ethernet
PoE port shipments increased almost 80%, compared to the same
quarter last year, Dell'Oro says. I doubt all those ports are
being used for phones - which would mean that in many cases,
customers are buying the capability just to have it, in case
they ever need PoE on those ports.
Dell'Oro notes
that the price premium for Gigabit PoE has declined, and that
Cisco and Nortel - the leaders in sales of IP phones - both
contributed to the record PoE shipments. The research firm says
the overall market has seen 17 straight quarters of
year-over-year growth.
In related news,
Dell'Oro said that the market for service provider routers also
hit a record level in the third quarter, at $2 billion. Cisco
and Juniper both collected record revenues from service provider
routers. They are the number one and two market leaders,
respectively, both growing this business at more than 30%
year-over-year.
Plus, the
worldwide IP telephony carrier market reached $1 billion in
quarterly revenues for the first time in the third quarter.
Wireless Drives
Cabling
A release of interest, from Frank the
cabling data maven:
HUMMELSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA, NOVEMBER 12,
2007 – Frank Murawski, President of FTM Consulting, Inc.,
announced the publication of its latest market research study
“Wireless Structured Cabling Systems (SCS) Market.”
Frank Murawski, President said, “Wireless is
becoming another IP subnet on the enterprise’s core network,
just like voice (VOIP) or video (video over IP).” Frank
indicated that the wireless local area network (WLAN) is being
driven by new technology developments, such as IEEE802.11n,
which will provide improved performance (higher throughputs) and
improved security features. In addition, the universal
acceptance of WiFi and the new developing technology, WiMAX,
provide enterprises with standardized technologies for use of
wireless within buildings. Moreover, the release of the TIA/EIA
– 162 cabling standard in March 2006 provides a platform for
deploying these new structured cabling systems. These and other
wireless developments, together with five-year forecasts for
copper and fiber cabling are included
within this new report.
Additional information on this report is
available at FTM Consulting’s Web site, www.ftmconsultinginc.com or by contacting Frank
Murawski at (717) 533-4990.
According to FTM Consulting, the structured
cabling systems market for wireless local area networks (WLANs)
is forecast to grow from $202.5 million in 2007, at a cumulative
average growth rate of 56.4%, to $1.9 billion by 2012. Data from
their new report details this new development.
(opinion posted by Joe Salimando to the EleBlog -- www.electricalcontractor.com.
Used with permission)
McCormick’s Year: A Quick Review
WINTER: McCormick took home a ShowStopper award for the 2006 NECA Show, That made 10 awards in
our 28-year history!
SPRING: Our 2007 User’s Conference included tips and hints about
Microsoft’s Vista and a preview of our new V9.0. See a report on the event here,
. . . don’t miss the 2008 User’s Conference,
scheduled for April 2-5 in Tempe, AZ.
Call 800-444-4890 for more information. Find the registration form here.
SUMMER: We were fortunate enough to win 2007 “Hottest Company”
honors from ConstrucTech magazine in both the residential and commercial categories:
FALL: We introduced Version 9.0 of our software at the NECA and IEC shows.
Also: We issued 11 editions of
this Newsletter during 2007. Access all previous copies here.
See Us In Orlando!
January 14-17, we'll have a booth at the BICSI Winter
Conference. More
information.
Read All About It!
-- Industry Coverage Of McCormick Systems V9.0.
Wireville – Release on V9.0
Write-Up By Stan Shook in E.C.
V9.0 on BuildingOnline
McCormick 2008 Calendar --
Dates For
Your Planning
We'd like to talk with you. Please consider coming to see us at the
shows listed below. And plan to be with us in Tempe for the annual
User's Conference!
Jan. 14-17, Orlando, FL -- BICSI Winter
Conference. More
info.
Feb. 27-29, Las Vegas, NV -- Electric West
Conference & Show. We're in booth #400. More info.
April 2-5, Tempe, AZ -- McCormick Systems
Conference '08
Pre-Conference training
classes (standard and advanced) -- March 31 & April 1
May 7-9, Las Vegas, NV -- ABC Construction Education Conference Elect/Mech
Sept. 29-Oct. 2, Las Vegas, NV -- BICSI Fall
Conference.
Oct. 4-7, Chicago, IL -- NECA Show
Oct. 30-31, Atlanta, GA -- IEC Electric Expo.
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