November 17th, 2008
Congratulations to Gallant Construction Co. for being featured in the Architectural and Construction Services section of Wyndam Hotel Group’s 2008 Buying Guide. Click here to view. Wyndam Hotel Group brands includes Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Baymont and Amerihost Inn to name a few.
We were first introduced to Gallant on a Lululemon Athletica project in the Fall of 2008. As the awarded General Contractor for the project they began to use our application to report daily and weekly activities on the jobsite back to Lululemon. Soon after the completion of this project Gallant began to use Report Hawk on Chipotle, Barnes & Noble and Michaels stores. Their detailed use of our application is a benefit to the project team members and a testament to their organization’s commitment to a detailed, well-organized and well-managed project.
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November 4th, 2008
Reducing a Project Manager’s number of site visits has long been a simple and quick method for a management team to reduce per project construction costs. Cutting one site visit from a project’s budget saves on travel, lodging, rental car and meal expenses. We have seen historical figures and estimates from one thousand dollars to just over four hundred dollars in savings per project by eliminating just one visit per project. If your company is building sixty projects a year that is a potential savings of $60,000.00 dollars on the high end to $29,220.00 dollars on the low end. A great savings to show to your boss, management team or investors!
However, talk to just about any Project Manager and they will tell you that reducing the number of site visits to a project can actually increase the project construction cost. How can this be? Easy, a site visit from the owner’s project manager provides valuable feedback to the contractor. The owner project manager can identify problems or mistakes, so that the contractor can correct them prior to the punch or turnover date. Eliminating a preconstruction or mid-point site visit reduces this feedback and the problems are then discovered during the end of the project which result in higher repair or coreection costs and can affect the opening date.
So the question is; can you have the best of both worlds? Can you reduce the number of site visits and yet still give valuable feedback and indentify problems and mistakes remotely? We like to think this is possible with the many features we give you to oversee and manage your projects.
Our Daily Job Reports, Weekly Status Report are designed to easily communicate the progress and quality of a project so that your Project Managers can quickly identify projects running ahead of schedule and identify projects that may need more of their attention to insure that their turnover date is met. In addition, if pictures are not enough to communicate the progress on your projects contact us about streaming videos from your job site!
Posted in Reduce Project Cost | No Comments »
October 24th, 2008
We are always on the lookout for technology that can really benefit our clients. We found this application and decided to try it in our office before recommending it. It’s free, it’s green and it saves you money. If you do not use your PCs Power Settings and/or think they are to confusing to use, then this nifty tool is for you. Edison by Verdiem, www.verdiem.com/edison helps change and manage your power settings. Just move a slider, click and save. We used the slider and set our PCs to one notch below Save More. According to Edison with this setting we save 694.15 Kilowatt hours of electricity a year and thus save 946 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. On top of that, we save $71.71 dollars per PC. A simple step to save money!
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September 26th, 2008
Building a project no matter the size or scope, is full of obstacles. One of the items we enjoy is researching and finding new products that can benefit contractors. While reading the October 2008 issue of Fast Company, we noticed a product from Exaktime, www.exaktime.com.
As I watched their demo video www.exaktime.com/demos/Default_lb.aspx I was surprised by how easy and beneficial this product can be for a contractor. Not only will you have accurate time cards but the GPS feature is also a management gem!
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August 8th, 2008
Congratulations to Report Hawk’s client, Starbucks Coffee Company, for their recent recognition in the Greener Buildings (May 15, 2008).
The Greener Buildings story outlines how Starbucks wants to “slash energy consumption in its stores by 25 percent and buy enough renewable energy certificates to satisfy half of its stores’ energy needs, all by 2010”!
The article goes on to detail how Starbucks is “working with the U.S. Green Building Council on both its LEED Retail program and a LEED Portfolio Pilot Program that could certify a building prototype, which would allow companies such as Starbucks to integrate LEED standards across an entire portfolio.”
It is exciting to see companies embrace green building standards. One of the ways Report Hawk aids in this effort for all of our clients is in the reduction of printing construction documents, shipment of these documents and the reduction of site visits. To view the full article see the link below.
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/05/15/starbucks-sets-new-goals-renewables-green-building
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July 25th, 2008
Congratulations to Report Hawk’s client, Soojian Strausser Construction, for the completion of their Coldwell Banker New Brunswick, NJ office. They are featuring the project on their website, click here to view.
Report Hawk was proud to be a part of this project. We have found that Steve Soojian and his team of Superintendents are very proactive and detailed when working with our application. We asked Steve to provide us a testimonial for our new website and here is what he had to say about us….
“Our Clients are very impressed with the weekly reports, which provide them the ability to check on the progress of a job without having to physically go to the site. This also holds true for me; with multiple projects running, I am able to keep close track of all of them. ”
- Steven Soojian
Member
Soojian Strausser Construction, LLC
We began working with Soojian Strausser Construction on a Starbucks’ project in 2007. After the project was completed Soojian began to use us on their other projects. They have provided us with some great feedback which has been incorporated into our version 2.0 release. This type of feedback makes us a better company and really improves the functionality and performance of our application. The key to providing good applications is to listen and trust your end users. If you make them happy, you are doing it right!
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July 22nd, 2008
One of the items that I often see our customers fighting is the management of photographs taken from their digital cameras. The camera default settings are typically the problem. Unless you edit the settings, you may find yourself taking very large pictures. Taking the pictures at the largest setting makes it a bear to email or upload.
There are plenty of photo or Jpeg resizing software applications online to download. We have found one by Microsoft that is free and very simple to use; however, it only works on Windows XP. Below is the link to download the Image Resizer.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe
Once the Image Re-sizer is downloaded and installed just select the pictures you wish to resize, right click your mouse and select “Resize Picture” pick the new size (usually 640 x480) and a new copy is made of the image. Fast and Simple. Below is more information regarding Microsoft Power Toys.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx
PowerToys add fun and functionality to the Windows experience. What are they? PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after a product has been released.
Note:We take great care to ensure that PowerToys work as they should, but they are not part of Windows and are not supported by Microsoft. For this reason, Microsoft Technical Support is unable to answer questions about PowerToys. PowerToys are for Windows XP only and will not work with Windows Vista.
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July 14th, 2008
Congratulations to Report Hawk’s client, Prodigy Construction Management, for their recent recognition in the Gadsden Times (July 14, 2008).
The Gadsen Times story outlines the construction of a 28,256 square foot Tractor Supply Store in Gadsden, Alabama.
“Construction began on the facility June 16. The contractor for the project is Prodigy Construction Management of Gahanna, Ohio. A construction completion date has been tentatively set for September.” See full story here.
Prodigy Construction Management is a long-time client of Report Hawk, having worked with us since 2001. Prodigy uses Report Hawk on all of their construction projects and has developed its operations around using Report Hawk for streamlining the building process associated with building retail projects across the United States.
Prodigy Construction Management takes advantage of Report Hawk’s many features including; Daily Job Reports, RFI, Schedules, Inspector Reports, Progress Photos, ITB to Subcontractors, Weekly Progress Reports, Travel Planning and more.
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July 7th, 2008
Project View Landing Page
Our Version 2.0 release is completed! 131 days from start to finish, which included 30 plus days of testing prior to release. We released the new version over the 4th of July weekend to take advantage of the three day holiday. It has been a great experience to see this version come to life. We would like to thank all of our general contractors, architects, construction managers, developers and owners for whom we have had the pleasure to work. Many of the new features you will see are from your requests and feedback over the past year.
Overall, our team is very happy with the performance of the 2.0 version. We will continue to modify and update the version over the next month to enhance speed and performance. Contact us today at support@reporthawk.com to take a tour of the new version.
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May 22nd, 2008
A friend of ours sent us this link regarding one of our new client’s: Lululemon Athletica. We think it is a great example of thinking outside the box in terms of marketing and customer service.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/healthyliving2/stories/DN-nh_yogaside_0325liv.ART.State.Edition1.336564d.html
To learn more about Lululemon Athletica see their about us link below.
http://www.lululemon.com/about/media/news/17
At Report Hawk we strive to think outside of the box for new and easier ways to streamline project management for our owners, architects and general contractors. Our in-house team, along with the feedback we get from our clients allows us to design applications that are easy to use and simple to learn.
As we continue to work on our version 2.0 release it is fun to see the new features and interface come to life. We are excited about the upcoming release and look forward to your feedback.
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