Local Team Develops Construction iPad App

A St. Louis partnership has developed the  "Construction Superintendent-Journeyman" iPad app. The app collects and speeds essential project information from construction project sites to the office. The new app was designed to cut delays and speed decision-making by making daily details accessible to construction company owners and project managers seeking control over project schedules, costs, safety and profitability.

"This is like online banking for superintendents," said Brinkmann Constructors Project Superintendent Mark Lutz. "This Construction Superintendent app places everything I need to manage critical construction activity at my fingertips. I've cut my paperwork in half, and I hate paperwork. I'd rather master the iPad learning curve and push buttons than write a report any day of the week."

Design-Build Approach to App Development

Development of the field-tested app tapped the construction discipline's design/build process, with project managers and superintendents at Brinkmann Constructors serving as subject matter experts and beta testers, working through a series of "design charrettes" in tandem with experienced enterprise application developers at Impact Technologies, Inc. Both are located in Chesterfield, Mo., a St. Louis suburb. The app was developed through Construction Centrics, LLC, a joint venture of the two firms' principals.

The app delivers an enterprise-quality solution at the price of $299.99, plus the cost of an iPad and a rugged case to withstand jobsite rigors. It replaces hand-written or dictated reports with electronically submitted forms that can be easily customized and personalized. The Construction Superintendent-Journeyman app is available online at the iTunes app store. It is compatible with iPads operating with IOS 4.3 or later, including IOS 5.

Key reports include the Daily Log, Safety Inspection, Work Authorization, Request for Information and Timesheet. In addition, users can establish rosters of vendors and contractors, equipment lists and project personnel to speed report generation and tag reports and related information to individual projects, integrating data that was previously stored in multiple places without fast and easy electronic access. Another valuable feature is the Due & Pending Worksheet to remind superintendents of upcoming and overdue forms.

"There are several costly project management software systems that offer this kind of reporting, but none are available at this low price point," said Brinkmann Constructors Project Manager Ted Hoog. "We've built this app with a robust foundation for future expansion."

Simplicity, Accuracy, Speed & Certainty

Bryan C. Baehr, president of Impact Technologies, said simplicity was the guiding principle. "Our goal was to develop an app that could be easily used by superintendents - from the tech-savvy to the uninitiated - to improve their individual and business success," Baehr noted.

"We place heavy demands on our superintendents," said Brinkmann Constructors Chairman Bob Brinkmann. "This app keeps communication between our field and office teams in sync with schedule demands and gives superintendents the tools needed to perform like heroes."

Daily Logs

"For our superintendents, this app changed the seven steps of dictating, emailing, transcribing, proofing, revising, filing and sharing Daily Logs - spanning several days - to our one-step solution," Hoog said. "Our superintendents now complete their Daily Logs as they work or at the end of each day, hit ‘submit' and it arrives in the project manager's email. Having your project manager look at what you've accomplished each day adds extra focus to daily efforts and speeds trouble-shooting. The ease of data entry generates much more useful detail."

Brinkmann Project Superintendent Greg Vossenkemper described, "As I complete each day's report, I can pick a subcontractor, enter the number of people working, detail the workcompleted, and pick any equipment used from my pre-loaded list," he described. "The ability to add data throughout the day as I carry around my iPad makes my records very accurate. I save time and share information with the team faster, without the cumbersome steps of project management software I've used in the past." In addition to sharing essential project information on a timely basis, the detailed logs serve as critical documents should a claim or a dispute arise.

Safety Inspection

Brinkmann Safety Director Tim Myatt uses the app's Safety Inspection reports on his rounds of weekly inspections to project sites. "I used to prepare each inspection report by hand, scan and save it, but it was not accessible to the team for hours or days," he said. "Now I complete the form as I walk the site and immediately email it to the project manager, superintendent and subcontractors before I leave the site so they can take action. I save at least half a day each week, and team members move fast to correct any safety deficiencies. That's a win-win for everyone."

Work Authorization

To accommodate the changes inherent in construction, the app offers a Work Authorization form. "We used to write each work authorization by hand and submit them once a week," noted Lutz. "Now I immediately email the subcontractor and copy the project manager with a completed work authorization so each bit of information needed from the field gets to the project manager's hands every day."

Request for Information (RFI)

Similarly, a superintendent's ability to get answers to questions arising in the field is streamlined with the Request for Information feature. Rather than calling the project manager or returning to the jobsite trailer to submit a question by email, the superintendent completes the RFI, and an email is generated to the source while also creating a retrievable record at a centralized location.

Timesheet

In construction, missing timesheets regularly send accounting team members scrambling. The new app equips superintendents to complete timesheets in real time and submit them to accounting for streamlined payroll management. "The old way required pulling up an Excel spreadsheet and entering time weekly," reported Vossenkemper. "Now I enter time daily into one fully integrated system."

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