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Multi-company Concrete
Contractor Eliminates Error-Prone Paper Timesheets and Data Entry Labor
Customer Profile
Tedesco Construction, Inc.
 Reno,
Nevada
Industry
Commercial concrete
contracting
Product
PowerTrack Mobile Workforce
Solution for Construction
The
Challenge
Tedesco Construction, Inc. is an award-winning concrete subcontractor
located in Reno, Nevada. The company, founded in 1984, does commercial and
manufacturing concrete placement in Nevada and California. More than 180
employees contribute to Tedesco’s $25 million annual revenue.
Tedesco encompasses three additional independent companies that provide
concrete pumping, rock and sand delivery, and curb and gutter equipment.
These companies operate in Nevada, California and
Hawaii. They employ over 50 people.
Tedesco employees do not work in set locations. Instead, a Tedesco employee
may work hundreds of different jobs in a year, in different towns and
sometimes in different states. Because Tedesco employees are widely
dispersed and may work for more than one of the Tedesco companies, Tedesco
found it challenging to collect timely and accurate labor hours. And because
concrete work is weather-dependent, the company wanted to track how weather
conditions affect job progress.
In addition to time and attendance and weather tracking, Tedesco sought to
keep track of equipment assigned to jobs,
material delivered to job sites, vehicle mileage, accidents and equipment
repairs in the shop.
The company needed an application that would integrate with Tedesco’s Sage
Timberline Office accounting package, and be easy enough for non-technical
employees to use.
The
Solution
Tedesco visited vendors at the Timberline Users Group Convention and Sage
Timberline Convention to look for the right time and attendance application.
“We looked at about 20 different products, but only came up with two that
might work,” remembers Windie Ruprecht, Tedesco’s payroll administrator.
Ruprecht and Tedesco’s project manager, general manager and vice president
extensively evaluated PowerTrack and the other solution.
Says Ruprecht, “we chose PowerTrack over the other product because
PowerTrack is a good value and easy to use.”
 Tedesco
uses 15 Palm® Treo 700 WX smart phones for data collection in the field. The
Treo, based on the Windows Mobile operating system, provides wireless
connectivity with broadband-like speeds. Because the device is a phone, PDA
and a mobile computer, field supervisors do not need to lug around and keep
track of multiple, heavy devices.
Field supervisors use the Treo to collect field employee timesheet
information, materials delivered to the job sites, mileage and hours from
Tedesco’s pumping trucks, and information on any accidents that may have
occurred. Employees can even sign their timesheets on the Treo using
PowerTrack’s signature capture capability.
“We digitally collect all the information an employee might write on a
timecard so we can eliminate the paper timecards altogether,” explains
Ruprecht.
Managers who work in the office enter their timecard information using the
PowerTrack Timesheet application on a desktop computer. In the shop,
supervisors use the PowerTrack PC Client application to enter shop hours and
information on equipment in the shop for repair. PowerTrack uploads timecard
and other data to Tedesco’s accounting software at the company’s central
office in Reno.
Tedesco’s workforce, while excellent at the technology of concrete, include
many who are not technically savvy. Some are even a little reluctant to work
with computers. The company chose PowerTrack in part because the technology
is easy to learn.
“Most of our employees got it right off,” remembers Ruprecht. “I paired up a
few of the less computer-savvy employees with those who understood
PowerTrack well.”
Employees call Ruprecht if they have any questions, and she usually can
explain
a procedure over the phone. In turn,
Ruprecht calls POSDATA technical support when she has questions. “They are
always on their toes to find the answer, give me ideas or provide help. They
really do go the extra mile for us.”
The
Results
Since implementing PowerTrack, Tedesco has reduced its data entry errors to
nearly zero and reduced data entry time by 65 percent. The accounting
department now enters new employees into the accounting system more quickly,
and foremen complete timesheets daily.
Also, Tedesco is able to collect information that the company previously was
unable to track, such as weather, mileage, equipment location and status.
Tedesco plans to expand PowerTrack to additional sister companies and to
tracking more types of equipment on projects.
Tedesco originally was looking for a solution to managing timesheet data
across a complex organization. With PowerTrack, Tedesco has done away with
paper timesheets and their associated errors, and gained more jobsite,
equipment and shop information. This information provides data for
executives to make decisions and predictions to better manage the
complexities of multiple companies.
“We are a growing company that needed a better way of collecting man-hours,”
says Ruprecht. “PowerTrack pays off because we spend far less time on data
entry and on fixing mistakes.”
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