General Contractor Case Study

Description of the project

The company Smith* international construction manages numerous construction sites around the world. Its projects are many and varied in size and nature, but all require a supply of reinforcing steel. The making of rebars is, in most cases, subcontracted. On rare occasions, a specific mobile workshop may be installed for the duration of the construction site.

 

Requirements

For a specific construction site in the Middle East, the site manager, responsible for managing the ordering and installation of the rebars, required a simple and powerful tool for organizing and following up, in the same place, the rebars ordered and the status of each drawing. This tool also had to allow for monitoring the receipt of deliveries and the available stock. Finally, it had to allow for checking subcontractor invoices.
The company’s Design and Engineering Department uses a CAD solution for the definition of the drawings and plans with the list of rebars.

 

Proposed solution

The supply chain: General Contractor Pack + import of the Design and Engineering Department’s CAD drawings + mobile application.

 

We implemented our General Contractor solution on this construction site. This solution allows the site manager to automatically incorporate the future rebar requirements into the software, using the files provided by the Design and Engineering Department. Orders (or production sequences) are then created in the A+ Software and exported into a universal format to be sent to the subcontractor selected, listed in the site.
Upon receipt of the steel on site, a check is made by reading the bar codes on the packaging labels to ensure compliance with the order. This check is carried out directly upon arrival of the lorry on site thanks to the smartphone application, and can be directly consolidated in the company’s supply chain. Stock levels are also updated. During formwork, the steel is deducted from stock. Invalid bars can be identified and possibly reused for another area of the site.
Subcontractor invoices are validated by comparing them with the delivery documents to approve payment.

 

Deployment

The solution was implemented over a period of seven weeks and included the following stages:

• Project management with analysis of specific requirements (Design and Engineering Department interface).
• Installation and configuration of the hosted database.
• Order and configuration of the industrial equipment (PDA for scanning deliveries).
• Definition of summary statements (stock, construction site and financial monitoring).
• User training on site.

 

Assessment

The A+ Software has allowed for optimizing the rebar implementation times through organizing orders and deliveries. By ensuring the integrity of the process, errors have been significantly reduced compared with a site of the same type that is manually managed. The site was finished and delivered on time, to the satisfaction of the end customer. Moreover, the financial data for the site, available in A+ Software, were made available to the Smith Group for specific consolidated analyses.

 

Architecture

This project required setting up an Internet network for the site. A+ Software can provide a centralized, multi-site solution that allows for managing rebar supplies for different construction sites using different subcontractors. Please contact us for your customized solution.

 

* Company names have been changed

Description of the project

Industry leader in aluminium railings, ALUDOR was founded in 1978. The company currently produces some 186 miles of custom aluminium railings per year. Present in over 50 countries worldwide, ALUDOR has diversified its activity over the past 10 years, today producing aluminium gates marketed through a network of professionals. The nexus company, ALUDOR’s Design and Engineering Department is responsible for validating the feasibility of each project and providing the elements necessary for the manufacture and installation.
Currently, drawing are produces in 2D usind CAD software. The problem is how

to enter the BOMs, taking into account quantitative elements and references. 

 

Requirements

Railings are systematically custom-made, adapted to the amount of concrete in the plateform. 
ALUDOR was looking for a highly efficient system that would help accelarate the design study phase.The study must allow the Design and Engineering Departement to generate a 3D volume visualization of the railings. The goal is to be able to use the different technical data in the production, sales and supply chain.
It then has to integrate the management of a large number of ranges of gates (>200) including regular new “collections”.

 

Proposed solution

– Industry Pack comprising the range configurator (price and production).
– Web application for prospective customers to carry out an online design study.

 

Deployment

The A+ Software solution was deployed. This allowed ALUDOR to ensure the integrated management of the supply, production and sales chains, based on our ultra-powerful and adaptable configurator.
The first ranges were configured with the help of our teams. The ALUDOR project team was then rapidly able to configure the additional ranges by itself, without any assistance on our part. 

 

Assessment    

Thanks to the Arma Plus graphical configurator, the number of files studied by designer and by month has increased from 40 to 200.
The technical specifications signed by the customers now include a 3D volume visualization of the railings, and the success rate has improved significantly. 
The design of the railings drives the following stages of the chain managed by Arma Plus, i.e, manufacturing, downloading of robots, procurement of stock, sales, etc.
Thanks to the graphical configurator, producing reliable design studies is now a straightforward process. This has allowed ALUDOR to set up an extensive franchise network in different countries around the world for the implementation of its products.

Arma Plus also created a graphical configuration Web application for ALUDOR that enables private individuals to design their own railings wich can then be ordered online. The application is accessible via the company’s commercial site.
Scancad technology is used for the creation of ranges based on the designer’s DWG or DXF files.