The most trusted software in construction.

Estimators

Estimators can:

• Dramatically reduces the repetitious work building a cost estimate and allows estimators to spend more time thinking of how to prepare a more competitive estimate
• Tools to quickly locate appropriate past estimates and copy from them into the current estimate with the options to use the most current rates.
• For estimators doing DOT work, in most states the ability to import bid items and even the ability to build an entire bid from your own historical estimates in minutes. For most states, HeavyBid does electronic bid submissions.
• Standard HCSS calculation routines and the ability for you to import your own custom spreadsheet calculation routines. Calculations routines are copied into the notes where used so that anyone reviewing an estimate can see where the final numbers came from.
• Nine-level codebook structure allows your company to standardize activities (cost codes) and materials to any level of detail. Standardized codes allow using analytics against similar estimated activities and to compare against actual job costs and productions. Activities can also be setup with crews, productions, and materials that come in automatically when that code is selected.
• If you have HCSS HeavyJob, you can look up actual production history with one keystroke. If you have standardized your activity codes, when you use one of those codes in the estimate, job history having the same code comes up automatically and you only have to filter down to the appropriate jobs.
• Then the jobs used to arrive at your production are copied into the notes, one line per job, so that anyone reviewing your estimate can see what jobs you used to get your productions.
• The ability to quickly change about anything in the estimate very quickly and even data throughout your entire estimate in seconds.
  Tools for reporting and searching the estimates in many different ways including a robust feature developed from customer feedback over time to help you catch errors or omissions in your estimate.
• A quote system to analyze subcontractors and material suppliers with shortcuts that can make this almost effortless. HeavyBid also tracks minority subs and has the ability to link your own work to that of a subcontractor and switch back and forth between them.
• An almost infinite number of ways to turn a cost estimate into a bid. With over 40,000 estimators preparing bids from $100,000 to well over $1 billion, we have had to provide a lot of flexibility over the 36 years that we have been in business.
• Many ways for preparing bid forms including using Word or Excel templates to make your bid submission look however you want.
• If you have HCSS HeavyJob, foremen and superintendents can see by activity what crew you used in your estimate, along with productions and any notes and calculations that you used.
  Bi-direction link with both MS Project and P6 for scheduling the estimate and then modifying based on changes made by your schedulers.
• Exporting of the starting budget to HeavyJob and your Accounting System which saves most companies hours per won job.

Project Managers

Project Managers can:

• Monitor job cost every day
• Monitor production every day
  Stay on top of manhours costed to the job
• Make sure equipment is utilized each day
• Make sure equipment is returned off of the job if finished
• Monitor progress quantities
• Monitor revenue quantities
• Ensure documentation is sufficient to defend claims
• See annotated pictures from the jobsite
• Read field notes to understand what happened on the site
• Keep up with submittal progress for materials
• Issue RFIs to engineers, architects, and owners reps for clarification
• Respond to RFIs and communicate instructions to the field
• Ensure that the field has the correct plan documents
• Markup the plan sheets to communicate instructions to the field
• Plan production with the foremen
• Ensure that the right equipment and crews are being dispatched to the job
• Organize and store any job related documents
• Reference the estimate details when needed
• Resolve issues sent in from the field electronically
• Compare the work performed each day to the safety activity to ensure relevancy
• Record any incident that happened on the site or monitor ones recorded by the field
• Make an observation about safety at the job site
• Coach the field on JHAs to help make sure they are prepared
• Monitor change order requests
• Track pending and approved pay requests for the owner
• Issue T&M payment requests
• Use standard or custom electronic forms to dramatically save time on T&M payment requests
• Forecast quickly using combinations of the initial budget, cost-to-complete, and forecast final

Foremen

HCSS Operations products can help foreman do their jobs faster and with higher accuracy. Even better, the foremen are connected to information from estimators and project managers to help them make better decisions for the jobs they run.

• The Foreman can do all of this on his iPad:
  Timecards to capture labor and equipment hours & quantities
• Record Diaries, Weather, and Jobsite Photos
• See daily how the job is doing compared to the budget (cost and/or production)
• Read HeavyBid estimator notes, calculations, crews and productions
• Initiate an issue that goes to project management
• Fill out electronic forms and virtually eliminate paper
• Plan the production for tomorrow with the “what if” capability
• Plan for safety with JHAs
• Lead and easily capture safety meetings from pre-built or custom material
• Do jobsite and/or equipment inspections
• Get everyone using the free safety observation feature
• See the skills of all crew members
• Record Near Misses
• Record Incidents
• See the current version of electronic plan sets
• Record As-Builts on the electronic plan sheets
• Calculate quantities off of the electronic plan sheets
• Record material delivered on the jobsite
• Record material placed today
• Record subs on the jobsite
• Make electronic equipment maintenance requests
• Record equipment meter readings
  Electronically request from the dispatcher, people, equipment, material, or trucks for tomorrow
• Record the trucks and hours or loads that came to the jobsite today
• See how efficient the trucks are and make smarter trucking decisions

Superintendents

Superintendents can:

• Plan work with foremen and project managers, including goals for production each day
• Monitor the progress of work performed at the job sites which they have responsibility for, including immediate production and job cost reports
• Get a quick, attractive daily summary on their mobile device showing everything that happened on the job each day
• Have immediate access to the details of the estimate, including what crew the estimator had planned, the production expected, any materials and trucking required, and any instructions or considerations that the estimator had in mind
• Instantly have access to the most current versions of project documents and plan sets at all times
• Mark up the plan sheets for many purposes, including as-built documentation, private notes for themselves, communicate instructions to the field, and to take measurements to get or verify quantities
• Approve the time and quantities claimed from the field electronically, thus eliminating the need to review information after the fact

Safety Managers

Safety Managers can:

• Select relevant safety meetings from the hundreds of supplied meeting topics (with content) and add to that list as necessary for your business
• Select relevant inspections from the hundreds of supplied templates and build your own as necessary for your business
• Monitor electronic safety documents collected from the field ( meetings, inspections, JHAs, observations) for each and every job site
• Use those documents to coach field employees towards improving the practice of safety
• Use near misses and safety observations to broadcast meeting topics across your company to mitigate possible risks
• Compare the work being performed in the field against safety activity to ensure that topics relevant to real hazards are being covered
• Track skills and certifications to help ensure that people are properly trained to do their job well and safely
• Prepare the field for success by either reviewing JHAs created by the field before work starts or starting a JHA and sending it to the field for them to use
• See leading indicator trends and start improvement initiatives

Executives

Executives can:

• Build a company that focuses on efficiency and effectiveness in the estimating, operations, and fleet departments
• Find a trusted partner that can help a high percentage of their employees work in an improved manner
• Spend more of their time reviewing and approving data rather than finding problems ad-hoc and worrying about what they haven’t found
• Shift focus in multiple work groups, for example:
• Virtually eliminating paper and the time and errors associated with it
  Helping field operations plan more instead of reacting
• Driving safety from the field up rather than using “safety cops”
• Focusing the shop on preventative maintenance rather than repairs
  Institute technology to reduce rework and the inherent safety risk that comes from it
• Helping the estimators and field get access to more of each other’s data resulting in less infighting between those groups
• Build the value of your company since you are using repeatable and trustworthy processes instead of relying on a few people to just catch problems
• Use the annual HCSS User Group Meetings as a way to bring back ideas for new ways to drive more efficiencies and better effectiveness

Quality Managers

Quality Managers can:

• Create and store best practice documentation on quality procedures for the dual purposes of communicating the right practices to the field and having an impressive set of documentation to communicate your quality system to a prospective client
• Pre-configure template or job-specific material control plans, including test frequency and tolerances of results
• Monitor the test results as they come in from the field from labs either on-site or off-site and testing from any combination of your quality people, 3rd party testers or labs, field testing from your crew, or tests performed at a plant
• Track non-conformant test results and institute corrective actions
• Collect, organize, and submit test results in a simple manner at the end of a job back to the owner/owner’s rep

Truck Drivers

Truck Drivers can:

• Keep track of the time they’ve worked each and every day
  Get notified of jobs they are scheduled to work at each day
• Track each dump and load they perform
• See their cycle times and work with the field supervision to clear obstacles that are delaying them
  Track quantities of material they pick up from a plant or quarry
• Do inspections of their truck and communicate issues for the shop to correct
• Electronically complete their drivers log and have access to it if requested by the DOT or other enforcement agencies

IT Professionals

IT Professionals can:

• Shift time away from being a “computer mechanic” to being a “solutions partner” at your company
• Help the company see the value you provide by being able to spend your energy understanding their problems and solving them
• Reduce the security and portability risk that comes from using spreadsheets for valuable company tasks
• Collect historical data that can then be mined for important information that can help the company or a department
  Rest assured that they have support back in Houston when technology inevitably needs correction through the HCSS 24/7 Instant Support
• Use the annual HCSS User Group Meetings as a way to bring back ideas for new ways to drive more efficiencies and better effectiveness

Equipment Managers

Equipment Managers can:

• Run an efficient and organized shop, building a reputation for excellence
• Shift more effort towards preventative maintenance instead of repairs
• Rely more on electronic meter readings to drive a reliable PM program
• Balance work orders across multiple mechanics with better visibility to workload and location
• Start comparing estimated vs actual work order time and cost to drive better work estimating practices in the shop
• Maximize the warranty periods of equipment and/or major components by instituting alerting of impending deadlines
• Track costs in a manner that both helps you run the shop and provides data to support rate setting decisions that affect the estimating department
• Make data-backed decisions on whether to extend the lifespan of equipment by investing in more repairs, or selling

Dispatchers

Dispatchers can:

• Plan out work for tomorrow or further in the future and see a “magnet” board for any day, past, present, or future
• Color code items on your electronic magnet boards for quick understanding
• Switch from a magnet board to a map view with one click
• Schedule any combination of people, equipment, trucks, material, small tools, inventory items, and lowboy assignments
• Distribute reports of everything that is scheduled for tomorrow
  Electronically receive requests of needs from the field
• Easily fill needs requests from the resources that are marked as available
• Monitor equipment utilization and reduce unnecessary rentals
• Keep organized in an impressive manner that helps the company have an accurate understanding of the value you provide
• Be able to track any history of resources for any reason

Project Engineers

Project Engineers can:

• Reduce the need for complicated spreadsheets to do their work
• Monitor job cost every day
• Monitor production every day
• Know which subcontractors and truckers show up each day at the jobsite so they can anticipate and cross-reference when approving payment to them
• Know when material is delivered and how much was placed and remains in inventory at the site
• Monitor progress quantities
• Monitor revenue quantities
• Ensure documentation is sufficient to defend claims
• See annotated pictures from the jobsite
• Read field notes to understand what happened on the site
• Keep up with submittal progress for materials
• Issue RFIs to engineers, architects, and owners reps for clarification
• Respond to RFIs and communicate instructions to the field
• Ensure that the field has the correct plan documents
• Markup the plan sheets to communicate instructions to the field
• Plan production with the foremen
  Organize and store any job related documents
• Reference the estimate details when needed
• Resolve issues sent in from the field electronically
• Make an observation about safety at the job site
• Monitor change order requests
• Track pending and approved pay requests for the owner
• Issue T&M payment requests
• Use standard or custom electronic forms to dramatically save time on T&M payment requests
• Forecast quickly using combinations of the initial budget, cost-to-complete, and forecast final

Mechanics

• Mechanics can:
  • Dramatically reduce the time to fill out their daily time card
  • Be able to call up all information about a work order while in the field including the equipment history 
  • Save a tremendous amount of time by quickly adding new work orders or adding information to existing work orders rather than filling out and handling paperwork
  • Record parts used and attach pictures of invoices for any parts purchased
  • Help the field by checking for repair backlogs on the equipment scheduled for repair and also any nearby equipment
  • Eliminate paper meter collection sheets with meter readings from telematics devices or from phones/tablets
  • Perform electronic equipment inspections

Fuelers

Fuelers can:

• Dramatically reduce the time to fill out their daily time card including fuel and other fluids dispensed at a job site
• See what equipment is supposed to be on the job site so that none of it is missed
• Record meter readings electronically for equipment not having telematics devices
• Perform electronic equipment inspections
• Send in electronic equipment maintenance requests

Payroll Managers

• Payroll Managers can:
  Finish weekly payroll postings in a fraction of the time, freeing up personnel to help in many other valuable tasks
• Process timecard data that has already been checked and validated by people who understand the data
• Eliminate the troublesome task of trying to decipher handwriting and/or bothering the foremen in the field for clarification
• Easily cross-check payroll hours using HeavyJob inquiries to find employees with under-reported or over-reported hours, resulting in fewer payroll corrections
• Compare the employees with hours reported each day to the employees who worked yesterday and/or employees dispatched to the jobsite to reduce the chance of missing someone who worked
  Implement an improved auditing and approval process that can be monitored and reported on to help improve the accuracy of data

Operators

Operators can:

• Keep track of the time and see how much time has been recorded for them for the week
• Get notified of jobs they are scheduled to work at each day
  Perform electronic equipment inspections
• Send in electronic equipment maintenance requests
• Record meter readings electronically for equipment not having telematics devices
• Inspect the jobsite for safety issues and communicate problems back to the office