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Using Our Software For Project Management |
Part one of three
Many McCormick Systems users -- Electrical and ABS contractors -- are using our estimating software as a project management tool. This is an important extension of the return on the money and time they have invested in our software.
How can you put this to work in your company? A three-part "tutorial" on using our software for PM begins here, and continues in the next two monthly newsletters. Click on any of the graphics to enlarge them.
Preparing the Job for Job Management:
1. Most Contractors break the Job into logical parts for Job Management. A lot of that work is automatically done for McCormick Systems estimating users. Our Cost Codes sort the Job’s parts the way they will be installed -- and may be customized by the user.
Some Cost Code examples include:
- Branch Rough – branch conduit, boxes, fittings, etc.
- Branch Wire – the smaller wire sizes and types used in branch wiring.
- Feeder Rough – feeder conduit, fittings, etc.
- Feeder Wire – the larger wire sizes and types used in feeder wiring.
- Trim Devices/Plates – Devices, plates, etc. needed to trim the job.
2. The job may be broken down by labels to further facilitate project management. Some examples and the reasoning behind the breakouts are shown below.
- The Base Bid, Alternates, and Change Orders may all be done in the estimated job.
- The job may be broken down in logical areas to manage material deliveries removing the need for daily emergency material deliveries.
- The job may be broken down in areas to check and schedule the labor force needed.
- As the job is completed the labor used to date may be checked against the labor estimated.
- Systems such as Security, Fire Alarm, Data, Communications, etc., may be broken out for material deliveries, labor management including scheduling.
The example above would give a list of material needed to complete Floor 1 of Building A for the Base Bid, and also the hours estimated to complete that area. The example below shows a breakout by cost code with material and labor totals.
An extension report for any of the label breakdowns, showing dollars, hours and percentages of material and labor for each cost code is also available for Project Management.
The above information may also be displayed as a graph
While estimating the job, you've already put the information needed for job management into your McCormick System estimating software (Electrical or ABS). What's important here, for managing your project, is that you can get that information out -- any way you'd like to see it. To manage the job, of course, you'll want to break it down into logical parts (just as you probably did in estimating!).
Next month: Using our software for material purchase orders and more.
'Estimating's Ideal World -- Here Today'
That's the headline Electrical Products & Solutions magazine placed on an article in its August issue. The autho, Dick Manrod of McCormick Systems, here's a slice of it:
All of the elements of “the ideal world” are here – today. My company, McCormick Systems, routinely provides these options to our contractor customers. I’ll bet some of our competitors do at least some of this, too. Consider the datacom (or automated building systems) contractor. I’ve worked a booth at BICSI events for the past few years. These contractors walk away from our booth surprised at how easy and productive datacom estimating can be (and how inexpensively they can obtain a starter system). Automated take-off is here, today. If your company can get digital plans from architects and engineers, you can – with a little up-front effort – have the computer do the counting. McCormick’s version of this, called CAD Estimating, counts everything.
You tell it what the symbols on a drawing mean and it counts all of them.
There are no miscounts.
What about omissions? The system gives you a list of symbols it didn’t count. Pay attention to this list and you won’t ever again miss a transformer or a back-up generator.
To read the entire article, go here.
Todd McCormick Quoted
As noted in the August newsletter, President Todd McCormick was quoted in an article in ConstrucTech. That piece has been posted online; find it here.
Software For Home Systems Contractors
That's the headline HomeToys.com slapped on our press release about ABS software. See it here.
McCormick & Dexter + Chaney
If you missed the release that talks about how McCormick Systems and Dexter + Chaney work together, you can find it on our partner company's Web site.
The release also posted here:
ECP Zone.
ElectricalSmarts.
Western Washington ABC Newsletter (see page 5 of this PDF)
We're Coming (Soon!) To Denver & Boston
McCormick Systems will exhibit in September and October at the IEC Electrical Expo and the NECA show.
Find us in booth #805 on Thursday, September 28, at the all-day IEC Expo. For details on the Expo and the IEC Convention, download the 16-page brochure (PDF) by clicking here.
Less than two weeks later, we will be in booth #601 at the NECA show starting Sunday October 8 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Show hours are 11:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday the 9th, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday the 10th. See the show site at www.necashow.org; download a 9-page brochure (PDF) by clicking here.
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What's Up With Our Company Founder?
Here's the text of a September 8th article in The Arizona Republic:
"Bush pilots aiding hurricane victims,
Chandler man heads a mission of mercy"
A Chandler businessman who leads groups of private pilots on pleasure flights to Mexico is heading a relief mission to deliver food and water to victims of Hurricane John, which battered the Baja Peninsula last weekend.
Jack McCormick, who owns Baja Bush Pilots, left Chandler Municipal Airport on Wednesday in his twin-engine Aero Commander. He brought with him 100 gallons of water donated by Wal-Mart, landed in the mainland Mexican city of Guaymas to pick up food donated by the Mexican Red Cross, then flew across the Gulf of California to an airstrip about a half-hour's drive to Mulege, a town of 3,100 on the east coast of Baja, facing the Sea of Cortez.
Many residents there lost their homes in flooding after the hurricane dumped up to 20 inches of rain on parts of the peninsula. Mulege is special to McCormick. Each March, he leads 300 to 400 people there on whale-watching trips.
People in Mulege contacted McCormick on Tuesday asking for help. "They're pretty desperate," he said. "We contacted the Mexican Red Cross, and they said things are critical down there and they need support. "Basically, the lower part of the town was completely destroyed," McCormick said. Hundreds of homes, many of them owned by retired Americans, were washed away or damaged when a wall of water came roaring down the Rio Mulege, the river that cuts through town and empties into the Sea of Cortez.
"People were living on either side. Everything they owned was washed away, including some people," McCormick said. Before he left Chandler, McCormick put out the call for help from other pilots, and he said he expected up to 20 private aircraft from around the Southwest to fly relief missions.
McCormick enlisted the help of Tempe businessman and pilot Don Downey, who plans to leave early today for Guaymas to pick up supplies destined for Mulege. He will fly his single-engine Mooney 231, which he parks at Stellar Airpark in Chandler. Downey, a member of the Flying Samaritans, routinely flies volunteer doctors and dentists to a medical clinic in the Mexican fishing village of Lopez Mateos.
Downey said other pilots from around the Valley are dropping medical personnel at a hotel in Guaymas, where they will stay tonight until they're flown to the clinic the next day. Meanwhile, the pilots will be ferrying supplies to Baja. Other pilots going today are Bob Jackson of Ahwatukee Foothills, president of the local chapter of the Flying Samaritans, and fellow members Rick Park of Chandler, Charlie Sheppard of Tempe, Keith Olson of Phoenix and George Hemminger of Nogales.
On previous trips to Mulege, McCormick has landed in the town. But the hurricane damaged the runway, so the supplies have to be picked up from an airstrip that's farther away. Several residents including Diana Johnson, who manages the 50-room Hotel Serenidad with her husband, Marco Lujan, are helping shuttle supplies. The town has at least 500 Americans in three RV parks. "Two of the parks were destroyed," Johnson said. The hotel also is without electricity or running water. Thursday, McCormick got word from the Mexican Red Cross that they wanted the Bush Pilots' help shuttling supplies from La Paz and Loretto into Mulege, and other flooded-out towns along the Sea of Cortez.
McCormick said he expected 20 planes from the United States to help in the relief effort. In addition to the supplies the Bush Pilots are bringing, helicopters from the Mexican Marines clattered overhead Thursday, landing where they could to drop off supplies. McCormick said the pilots planned to continue to ferry supplies to the town "until we're not needed."
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