How to Reduce Construction Costs
Tool and Equipment unavailability on a job site can results in costly downtime and delays. You can easily reduce it using a tool management system with Mobile Field Requisition.
Construction work involves usage of various tools and materials, from nuts and bolts to high tech equipments. Availability these equipments and materials are critical for on time job completion and their unavailability can results in costly downtime and delays.
Tool Unavailability = Lost Time!
Job sites often have multiple tool rooms and each with their own tool inventory. When superintendent or a foreman needs a critical tool for the job on hand, they have to spend time locating that tool by calling multiple tool rooms and hunting down the required equipment. Worse, if the tool is not in inventory, they may have to call other job sites to get it or order a new one. This takes them away from critical field work and back to trailer to be at desk locating tools. And delays in receiving equipment can lead to lost time and impact job completion.
Missing Materials
While it is natural to concentrate on expensive tools and equipments, missing materials can also cause work stoppage. What good it is to have an equipment when you don't have material to use them with? However since materials tend to be less expensive and often bought in bulk, they don't get same attention as expensive tools and equipments, and can result in them going out of stock, which can lead to job completion delays.
Tool Hoarding
Because of the difficulty and delay of requesting and receiving delivery of equipment, superintendents tend to hold onto anything they might possibly need rather than risk not having the vital tools they require for their job. This of course slows down the flow of tools to others that may need those tools. The slower movement of tools results in the company purchasing more tools than are actually needed and leads to unintentional inventory build-up. This is not a sustainable practice.
What you need is a way for field personnel to easily search and order tools and materials right in the field.
Field Requisition
Mobile Field requisition enables field personnel to quickly search and place order for required tools and associated materials in the field. They do not have to call multiple places hunting for tool or send out mass email waiting to hear back. They can search for required items on the mobile and immediately know its availability and place an order. Knowing that a particular tool is out of stock, they might choose to utilize alternate tool to keep work flowing. And with option to order out of stock items, field personnel can continue with their normal job duty and move responsibility to find tool to the tool room staff, who are better equipped to locate and dispatch the required tools.
Bonus Benefits
With ability to search and order tools and materials right from field, come other side benefits that are often overlooked. With field personnel getting more accustomed to field requisition and getting required assets on time, it tends to build confidence in system and people restore to ordering only what they need, which leads to reduction in tool hoarding. Another benefit is employees start to plan better and place order ahead of time due to ease of mobile ordering, which makes tool rooms more efficient and leads better management of inventory.
When considering a solution for inventory management system with field requisition, look for the following elements:
- It must be easy to use.
- It must allow for ordering of all required tools, equipments and materials.
- It must be done in the field without having to go back to office.
- It must benefit the field person to do it.
Whether you’re evaluating an inventory management system or building your own process, check on how a field personnel can easily locate and order required tools and materials.
To learn more about tool tracking and inventory management system that enables easy field requisition, check out ToolWorks