Trades & Construction
The quote went out late, and the job was already losing money.
A shop with a crew has two problems that compound. The first is that the quote is built from a template nobody has repriced since material moved, so margin is decided before the job starts and discovered after it ends. The second is that the schedule, the material and the crew live in three places, so a slab that was promised twice is found on the morning of the install. Neither is a software preference; both are the reason a busy quarter can end flat.
What we hear
The problems that actually show up.
Not a market overview. These are the specific failures that bring people to us in this sector.
Estimates built on last year’s prices
Material moves, waste factors are guessed, and edge, cutout and install labor are carried as a round number somebody remembers. The estimate is the most consequential document in the business and it is usually the least maintained.
The schedule is a whiteboard
Measure, template, fabrication and install are four appointments against one crew and one set of material, tracked in a calendar that does not know what is in the yard. Rescheduling one moves three and nobody is told.
Material that only exists in somebody’s memory
A slab is a unique object with a photograph, a remnant is worth real money, and both get promised on the phone. Without inventory the yard is reconciled by walking it.
Job costing after the fact, if at all
Labor hours, material actually consumed, rework and the trip back are collected weeks later from paper, which means the answer to which jobs make money arrives too late to change what you bid.
Change orders agreed verbally
The customer asked for a different edge profile on site. The fabricator did it. Nobody signed anything, and the invoice is now a negotiation.
A website that cannot take a measurement
Buyers arrive from a search or a map listing wanting to see the material and book a measure. A brochure site with a contact form loses them to the shop that shows the slab and offers a time.
What we build here
Systems we typically build in this sector.
Some of these are whole products; some are one screen that removed a week of manual work. Both count.
- Quoting and estimating from real material, waste and labor rates, repriced as costs move
- Slab and remnant inventory with photographs, so what is quoted is what is in the yard
- Measure, template, fabrication and install scheduling against one crew calendar
- Field applications with photo capture and customer sign-off that work without signal
- Change-order capture with a signature attached to the job, not to a text message
- Job costing that closes actuals against the estimate while the crew is still on site
- Public sites that show real work, quote a range honestly and book a measure appointment
- Customer portals for job status, so the office stops being a status API
Integrates with
The estate you already have.
We work through supported interfaces, not screen-scraping that breaks at the next upgrade.
Built to
The standards this sector answers to.
Engineered in from the start. Retrofitting conformance costs several times as much and produces a worse result.
Case studies
None published in this sector yet.
We have not delivered and published an engagement in trades & construction under this firm’s name. We would rather say that here than let a capability page imply otherwise. What is behind this page is the regime named above, the services listed below, and the reference implementations on the engineering page, each carrying a written note of what it is not. If a proven engagement in your own sector is what the decision rests on, say so on the first call and we will tell you plainly whether we are the wrong firm for it this year.
Next step
Working in trades & construction?
Bring the specific failure, not a requirements document. Forty-five minutes and we’ll tell you what we’d do about it.