They wrote about us: Czech application
- whip on masons
Whip for masons. The Czech mobile application monitors attendance, tools, materials and construction logs. Anyone who has ever had something built for themselves knows very well how helpless they are when the masons don't act fairly. Billing of unworked hours, fictitious data in the construction diary, disappearing material and technical equipment. Now it can be effectively defended against. Using a mobile app.
The whole life of Josef Beneš is connected with the construction industry. When he was seventeen, he started as an adder on a construction site. In his thirties, he was already in charge of large projects as a manager in an established construction company. At that time, he also founded his own construction company, which today is also involved in the implementation of smart homes.
As an old practitioner, he has known for a long time what problems are bothering builders. That is why, first for himself and now also for other entrepreneurs in the construction industry, he had a smart solution created that saves money, simplifies administration, improves communication and enables a constant overview of ongoing and already implemented projects.
First take a picture at work, then start working
"On the construction site, I was in charge of about a hundred people, whose attendance I had to monitor, among other things," recalls Josef Beneš of his time in a managerial position. "Usually it works so that masons write down the hours worked themselves and understandably often cheat - the hours shown on paper do not correspond to the actual hours," he adds. That's why when he commissioned the development of the application, the first function he requested was attendance registration. Workers keep track of their attendance through the Stavario application very simply – after arriving at the workplace, they click "arrival" on their phone, the application takes a photo of them and records the GPS coordinates along with the exact time. The same goes for departure.
The solution also saves time for the construction manager, who normally receives time sheets from employees on paper, then transcribes them into an Excel spreadsheet in order to calculate construction labor costs at the end of the month. But even he can cheat, add fictitious hours worked and share the profit with the masons. The application excludes such unfair behavior - it automatically calculates labor costs for individual projects. In addition, the management of the company has them available continuously, not until the end of the month.
The new drill will no longer be lost
Another problem that Josef Beneš solved was the borrowing of machines and their transfer between workers. And above all, returning them. Equipment was often lost and the company didn't even have much of an overview of who had worked with it last. The construction manager then had to call a lot of colleagues during the search, and he was not always successful in the search. With the Stavario application, he has an overview - when taking over a sander, for example, an employee scans the barcode stuck on it with his phone. That way, everyone knows who to turn to in case of need. When a company buys a new machine, it can easily inform all workers about it via the app. In order to be able to log in after coming to work, they must first read the news and confirm that they have read it.
The application also provides up-to-date information on stock, again by scanning the bar code of the material when it is issued from the warehouse or returned. Users can thus check at any time whether a particular material is available or if it needs to be ordered.
The company will save a lot of administration thanks to the possibility to send requests and tasks to employees electronically. The app can be used to show them documents to read and sign or to announce tasks for individual days, eliminating the need for daily calls.
The construction diary is now only electronic and online
"The construction diary is usually a separate chapter. It is usually kept in paper form and prescribed on several pages so that there are copies for technical supervision and the investor as well. They have to go to the construction site because of him, diaries are lost, falsified, the records sometimes cannot even be read well," Josef Beneš lists the problems. So he had the application programmed in such a way that it would allow keeping a construction diary online. “Except for some entries, such as emergency or weather, most of the information is generated automatically from the attendance, warehouse and machinery sections. In addition, the technical supervisor and the investor have access to the diary, which means they always have an overview of the construction," says Beneš.
The ability to upload documents to the application is a great advantage for the perfect cooperation of all those involved in the construction. This ensures that everyone is always working with the current version of the project documentation. The company also uses the application to send the investor a contract, report on multiple tasks or revisions, while he has the option to sign these documents. Stavario monitors the construction even in the following years after completion – for example, a notification can be set in the construction diary, which will notify the investor in five years that it needs to renew one of the revisions.
The investor can also view photos of the construction taken by masons and construction supervisors directly in the application. Stavario automatically assigns them to the right project, so there's no need to sort or email images.
For companies, their employees and investors
The application exists in three interfaces. For employees and subcontractors, it is available in a mobile version for Android and iOS operating systems. The construction company uses a web interface through which it performs administration and solves processes from wages to asset tracking to communication with investors. The investor then accesses the application via its own web interface, in which he can read the construction diary and monitor how many people are currently working on the construction site. He also has the opportunity to read and sign documents, view photos from the construction or make requests to the company, and if necessary, receive requests from its employees and respond to them.
"There are a few similar applications on the market, but unlike ours, all of them are based on the construction manager entering data into them. He often doesn't have time for it and registers late, sometimes he even comes up with something. In addition, competing applications are always focused on only one area, such as asset tracking or attendance records, so they are not as comprehensive as ours. We were the first to put the application in the hands of bricklayers. In addition, the controls are so simple that even a Ukrainian who does not know our script can handle them," states Beneš.
Savings of up to 11% of project costs
According to Josef Beneš, the Stavario application can save a company with twenty employees the agenda of up to two workers and save up to 11% of costs on the construction site. It targets small and medium-sized companies with ten to two hundred employees, but it can also be used by large companies. Somewhat surprisingly, even companies outside the construction industry have already shown interest in it - Stavario serves, for example, a sheltered workshop in Liberec, which uses it to handle warehouse management, attendance records and asset management.
If corporate customers are interested in the application, they pay a one-time installation fee ranging from ten to fifty thousand crowns. The size of the company is decisive. Another cost is a monthly fee from two to six thousand depending on the amount of data stored on the cloud. Before buying, interested parties can try the demo version on the website for free.
The application for builders also caught the attention of the jury of the regional round for the Ústí Region of the T-Mobile Rozjezdy competition, which awarded it second place. "It was beneficial for me to hear the opinions of the jury, the media support that I received thanks to the placement also helps me a lot," praises Josef Beneš. As more and more is known about the Stavario application, the interest of customers and potential partners is also increasing. "We want to cooperate, for example, with YouTubers who are involved in the construction industry. Before, many of them did not even reply to our e-mail, now they are starting to contact us themselves." admits Josef Beneš.
