Who, What, Where, When, How

Who do I get an insurance certificate from? What is our SOP for closing-out a job? Where can I find a warranty letter? When do I need to set-up a change order log? How do I set floors to repeat in OST? Have you heard these questions before? Do you know the answers? Do you know who to ask to get the answers? Do you roam the halls searching for someone who can help you?

If you have asked yourselves these questions before and did not know who to ask or where to go to get the answers, we are creating the solution. Marek Brothers Systems has contracted with SMBology to generate the company’s first intranet. Marek will be implementing the SharePoint software to create a knowledge database. Lew Platt (former CEO of Hewlett-Packard) said, “If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive.” This summarizes our goal which is to produce a user friendly forum where the wealth of knowledge that exists within this company can be shared.

SharePoint is a Microsoft product that looks and feels much like a website. It is an intranet site that is only accessible through Marek’s network and will provide a centralized storehouse for information. It is a searchable database that will allow users to quickly and easily find documents, forms, and the answers to a wide variety of questions. With varying versions of documents, such as warranty letters, parked on the share drives of branches from Harlingen to Atlanta, SharePoint will provide a central location for a standardized edition to be stored and accessed by all.

SharePoint will be introduced in several phases to the Marek Family of Companies. Phase 1 of this project, which is scheduled to roll out in approximately 8 weeks, will be geared towards the estimators and project managers. A committee of employees representing all the branches has been formed to help develop this first stage. Our responsibility is to develop a home page and then develop an Estimator/PM site that includes a Message Forum for collaboration, a searchable knowledge garden (FAQ’s) and template for Project Specific Sites. Once this initial phase is complete, new sections will be added over time to include all the different departments within the Marek Family of Companies, so get ready to Share the Wealth of knowledge.

Revamping the Paint Database

A little known fact is that a vamp is a cobblers term for "the upper part of a boot or shoe covering the instep and sometimes extending over the toe;” but to revamp somehow means "to revise or reconstruct." That is exactly MBS is doing with their bidding database for the paint department. Department manager Randy Viereck charged Robert Hall and Winn Martin (the oldest and youngest of the department) with the task. "With the experience Winn brings to the table and the excellent understanding of the software that Robert offers, once the database is complete we will be better prepared to take on future projects," says Randy.

For so long the paint world was run by square foot prices. twenty cents for this, forty-two cents for that. But things are changing with painting today. More and more architects are specifying painters meet LEED requirements and manufacturers are stepping up to the plate with new low and zero VOC (volatile organic compounds) in their paint. These new paints are not as easy to work or understand, probably because they are so new to the industry. Another change is the innovations manufacturers are making with an increased number of paint systems for all the many substrates we cover. All this, and the versatility of the On Center Software that MBS uses for their wonderfully thorough take-offs, called for a change to be made to the database.

Improvements to the database will include a complete list of labor and material codes for our field to use. The biggest transition our drywall contemporaries made a few years ago was the synchronization of their database to match field labor and material reports. Paint hopes to do the same by the end of the year.