ACTING WITH CONFIDENCE
Cutwood Joinery streamlined operations
procurement as essential to its business, with a portfolio spanning house extensions, loft and garage conversions, garden rooms, full home renovations, and commercial fit-outs. The business was operating effectively for smaller jobs, Kris Keegan, Operations Director at Cutwood Joinery Ltd, explains, but struggled with overlapping trades, variations and material lead times. “We needed commercial-style controls to improve efficiency and support our operatives and clients,” Keegan says, “that meant clear programmes, documented
the app, priced, and approved before work proceeds.
cost codes for labour, plant, and materials, and added quality and H&S checklists.
Cutwood Joinery Ltd’s implementation of Buildertrend covers: ● Templates – work breakdowns and schedule templates
● Communication – progress notes,
● Planning – project managers maintain a live Gantt with a
selections, approvals, and documents live in the client portal.
for various works. Each task carries an hour budget, required photos, and completion criteria, and
two-week look-ahead. Materials lists are due by 3pm, POs are raised against tasks and cost codes, deliveries are tied to dates.
● Lead to contract – enquiries enter Buildertrend as leads captured on the website via a dynamic contact
changes, and live budget tracking, applied consistently to domestic work.” The answer lay in being bold enough to implement a new digital tool – Buildertrend – which now gives the business Gantt scheduling with dependencies, daily
● Site operations –
form. Estimates and proposals are issued from templates, then converted to jobs with budget and schedule already in place.
operatives complete daily logs with photos, labour hours, blockers, and plans for the next day. RFIs and change orders are raised in
same discipline as commercial schemes, which shortens programmes and reduces rework,” Keegan says. In closing, for those members intrigued by Cutwood’s tech adoption, Keegan offers helpful advice: ● Pick one platform to be your system of record and avoid a multi-platform project management methodology. ● Start with a minimum set of non- negotiables: a live Gantt, daily site diary with photos, materials ordered against the schedule via POs, time entries tied to tasks, and change orders approved before work. t p otos, ate als o de ed a the schedule via POs, time entr to tasks, and change orders app ● Build a handful of strong templates per project type and assign named owners for schedule, procurement, and reporting. ● Explain to clients that the portal is for official updates and approvals. ● Track a set of weekly measures: Build a handful of strong templa per project type and assign nam owners for schedule, procurem Explain to clients that the por official updates and approvals
logs with photos, a client portal for updates and approvals, purchase orders and cost codes tied to budgets, and a lead/estimate workflow. “We standardised every project – domestic and commercial – around a single software operational system,” Keegan says. (See ‘Streamlining operations’ boxout.) Buildertrend has helped the Cutwood Joinery Ltd with: ● Programming ● Resourcing ● Daily site logs ● Progress images ● RFIs ● Selections
Cutwood Joinery Ltd now enjoys more efficient projects due to tech adoption
company processes must exist and take place within the Buildertrend portal,” Keegan says. Implementing any new tools or processes requires careful planning and Keegan says the company rolled it out in stages, assigning ownership to each “so nothing fell between roles. We now treat domestic works like a commercial eega says t e co t o pa y olled t out stages, assigning ownersh so nership to each “s nothing fell between roles. We n eat We now tre
contract with tight controls on all aspects of the work programme”, Keegan says. The benefits include improved delivery and productivity, greater commercial control and cash flow, an enhanced customer experience, more team me ,
● Change orders ● Purchase orders ● Budgeting ● Timekeeping ● Client communication
schedule adherence, variation turnaround time, cost variance by code, and hours spent on rework, and act on them. Track a set of weekly mea set of weekly schedule adherence, varia turnaround time, cost v by code, and hours s d hours rework, and act on If you handle do If you handle domestic enquiries, an online cost calculator sets budget expectations early and saves time. enquiries, an onli calculator sets b expectations ea
and subcontractor clarity, and a better quality work pipeline. “Overall, domestic projects now run with the pr y
“We have moved away from traditional communications and
project management methods such as text threads, Whatsapp groups and spreadsheets, enforcing the rule that all
Kris Keegan of Cutwood Joinery Ltd
37
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