Masonry Magazine April 2011 Page. 29
MASONRY COMPUTER ESTIMATING
Masonry Computer Estimating
That Does It All... in 3D!
by TRADESMEN'S SOFTWARE
Elevating scaffolding has been seen as a fancy way to scaffold a wall, but the positive impact it has on your job cost is real and significant.
While elevating scaffolding offers a significant advance when compared to frame scaffolding by eliminating most of the OSHA headaches, reducing back strain, etc., those may not be the most important benefits in these difficult times. How to beat the competition and make a profit are the important factors.
You see, for so many years, elevating scaffolding has been seen as a fancy way to scaffold a wall, but the positive impact it has on your job cost is real and quite significant. Here is the bottom line, and the answer to the question above: If you ask 20 mason contractors what a 20 percent increase in production does to your profit, 19 of them will say it increases profit by 20 percent, but that is wrong. In most masonry bids, the labor number is five times larger than the profit number. If labor is $100,000, profit might be around $20,000.
Reducing labor by 20 percent, just one-fifth, actually doubles profit. That's how your competitor can bid at your cost and still make money. All he has to do is work one-fifth faster than you. In lean times, you want to be the guy putting in materials at a rate that is faster than anyone else, and elevating scaffolding lets your men produce at a rate that is a minimum of one-fifth faster without even realizing it.
Over the years, hundreds of mason contractors have adopted elevating scaffolding. The concept of putting a crew in one place, and never moving them until the wall is topped out, increases their efficiency and production as much as 47 percent. It also simplifies the laborer's work, since there is no more scaffold building and teardown. Laborers can spend 100 percent of their time tending the masons. They typically raise the scaffold for three minutes and tend the masons for 18 minutes. They raise the scaffold every 16 inches to keep the masons at the perfect working height.
"I'm so thankful I bought it when I did. I thought it would put us in a bind to buy it, paying out $6,000 a month, but we never noticed it. We made much more than that each month, because of the extra production. I bought it for a job that I took cheaper than I should have. We would have lost money for sure with frames..." IMAS
Jacob Strider, Gator Masonry, New Orleans
www.masonrymagazine.com
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Negotiating projects with a 3D image will win you more contracts and enhance your professional image
TRADESMEN'S SOFTWARE, Inc.
1-800-494-4899
See for yourself at:
www.tradesmens.com
READER SERVICE #163
April 2011
MASONRY 27