A Conversation with Sloan's Jean-Baptiste Fangous
“We can plan a lot but nothing goes according to plan.” This is how Jean-Baptiste Fangous of Sloan Construction characterises the dilemma at the heart of being a Project Manager—as a balance between planning well and juggling the plates when the plan misses a beat, and then misses ten.
Geometrid sat down with Jean-Baptiste to better understand how General Contractors approach their projects, plans, and the data that is the real link between them. It is, after all, the quality and timely availability of data that often fills the gap between a project plan and actual project execution. The detection, correct diagnosis, and prevention of deviations from the plan is what data can do, but only if it’s properly harnessed.
Jean-Baptiste remembers a time when this data gap was very apparent: “When I started, we had a field book with physical paper reports from the field.” These were far more prone to delay and human error or illegible recording of information. But as the industry has evolved, despite its innate inertia, technology has caught up to it. Sometimes in unexpected ways.
“What we have now is a two-speed economy in the industry. On the one hand are the experienced and knowledgeable older workers who are not tech-savvy, and on the other, you have younger workers raised on smartphones and iPads who are tech-savvy but lack experience.” Bringing these two together—field experience and tech-savviness—will be critical to construction companies seeking to retain their competitive leads in a time when experience is fast becoming obsolete with new materials and methods; and tech-savviness is becoming outdated quickly as the industry’s technology continues to rapidly advance.
“The main and only influence you have on a project is over manhours and equipment hours; materials are usually a given and fixed requirement in terms of cost and specifics.”
Data, and harnessing it in a way that allows a firm to exploit its experience and tech-savviness, is the key. In more ways than one.
Jean-Baptiste reminds us that there are very broadly (and very simply) two kinds of contracts when it comes to ordinary general contracting projects: unit-price contracts, where payment is released based on every task completed or milestone crossed, and lump-sum contracts, where payment is released after the completion of all tasks.
The former is an easy initial avenue to begin squeezing money out of data, according to Jean-Baptiste. “Too often, revenue is lost or comes in too late because the completed task is not reported to the client on time.” This has to do with a disconnect between on-site updates and consolidated updates that finally reach the PM team, sometimes 3-4 days later. “Many times, additional work is done without realising.”
Having watertight data collection and reporting—across all stages of the project and for every single element—is a solution to this issue of incurring man- and equipment-hour costs for no or delayed revenue.
Geometrid has helped PMs and project teams of different sizes and specialisations accomplish just this. (Learn more here).
“The main and only influence you have on a project is over manhours and equipment hours; materials are usually a given and fixed requirement in terms of cost and specifics,” said Jean-Baptiste. The best way to optimise the use of manhours is to cut down redundant work, make time-intensive tasks more efficient, and reduce communication delays and accidents. Similarly for equipment hours, with the added condition of reducing downtime and idling. Having solid data pipelines that are automated and require minimal time spent on collection, consolidation, or communication help achieve this. Learn about how Geometrid helped this project manager save 10 manhours per week.
"Geometrid allows end-to-end documentation for every single element, every single task, and every single stage of the supply chain."
The financial benefits of better data management for general contractors go beyond the construction yard and often into the courtroom as well. Construction disputes saddle general contractors with expensive consultants, lawyers, and settlements that could make an entire project loss-making. But it is data more than lawyers that can frequently make the difference. “If the other side has a 1 metre pile of papers against me and I have a 2 metre pile of papers, my odds are better. Geometrid allows end-to-end documentation for every single element, every single task, and every single stage of the supply chain.”
Apart from revenue optimisation, therefore, effective data exploitation also yields savings optimisation for general contractors: savings from manhour efficiency, savings from avoiding uncompensated work or accidents, and savings from lowering dispute risk or delayed payment. These savings can benefit the long-term competitive position of the firm, according to Jean-Baptiste. “For engineers and PMs, savings allows you to think of better ways of doing things; for the firm it allows you to deepen your relationship with the client, split savings with the client, or pass on all savings to the client and end-users.”
Get in touch with Geometrid today to understand how your firm can make its data work harder today.