This is the noise you hear at every supermarket check-out up and down the country, because the retail industry cottoned on to the benefits of bar coding its products a long time ago. The construction industry could also gain immense advantages from bar coding, but it has not widely adopted its use yet. After all, a bag of sugar and a block of concrete are different, right? Wrong.
Bar coding construction materials works in exactly the same way as bar coding any other merchandise. The manufacturer puts a bar code on each product, which can then be scanned as it is received either by a merchant or directly on site. Hand-held machines are used for this, similar to those used in supermarkets for stock control.
How many times have you accepted a delivery of stonework on site to find the pieces are not labelled and you have no idea which is which? With a bar code on each pallet, or even on each piece of stonework, you could instantly tell what's what. Also, the suppliers could use bar coding to put the pallets on to the lorry in the right order to begin with.
Bar coding is helpful not only for reducing defects, but also for preventing disputes. If there is an electronic record of each delivery arriving, there can be no argument about whether a delivery was received or not. And there is no risk of paper invoices or delivery notes going missing.
One construction firm that has already dipped its toe into bar coding is Bovis Lend Lease. It tested it on a £16m project for Safeway in east London last year. Retail was the inspiration for the trial, according to commercial manager Nigel Grace. "We have worked with Safeway for a number of years and it worked for them, so we thought we would give it a try."
Cutting down on the paper involved in the construction process was another driver to use bar coding, says Grace. "There are hundreds of invoices and delivery notes for each job," he explains. "Some get lost and no one knows who has signed for what. Payments to the supplier can be delayed because of this. They don't have this problem in retail because everything is paid and signed for electronically."
Bovis took a different approach to having every product bar coded, however, and got its suppliers to bar code delivery notes instead. "When the delivery note is scanned, it registers with the site PC. This automatically sends an e-mail to the supplier saying we have received the goods, and whether they are acceptable or not. A list of what's in the delivery also appears on the hand-held scanner so it can be checked before being signed for."
And there can be no argument over who has signed for what, as everyone authorising deliveries is assigned a pin number. "To sign for goods, you have to log into the scanner with an electronic button, like the ones used in bars and restaurants," adds Grace.
Although the Safeway project was intended as a trial, Grace says it was so successful that Bovis is now looking
at other benefits of bar coding. "Capturing the delivery information and linking it to payment and accounts systems has been put on hold until we get our portal [Arrideo] up and running, but we are considering bar coding for monitoring work as well. For example, instead of writing down when a piece of steel is erected, it can be scanned and fed into the site PC, so there is always an up-to-date record of the project. Then the client, as well as us, can always know what stage the construction is at."
Zebra Technologies is one company attempting to convince the construction industry of the benefits of bar coding. It is the leading UK manufacturer of printers for bar codes, and Paul Vogt, European product marketing manager at Zebra, says everyone in the supply chain has something to gain from bar coding. "There is expense all the way down the chain in using bar codes, but value too. In retail, everyone from the manufacturers to the retailers has their own codes, for pricing, stock control and tracking goods."
Although Vogt realises that bar coding is still in its infancy in the construction industry, he predicts a healthy future for it. "There are many issues involved, but companies can see the real benefits in the short term of being able to keep track of goods. Things go walking on a building site. With bar coding there is a record of where materials should be at all times."
After years of talk, bar coding on site is a reality. Are you ready?
How Nottingham City Council tracks taps using bar codes
If you asked a typical council maintenance department in Britain how many taps it has in store, what reply would you get? The answers would undoubtedly range from "dunno" to "thousands, probably".
If you asked Nottingham City Building Works the same question, it would be able to tell you exactly how many taps it has to the very last one.
Why? Nottingham's city builders bar code all of their materials. When building materials arrive at the direct labour organisation's stores, bar codes are applied to the materials and swiped into a hand-held computer. When the components leave on a job, the bar code is swiped again and the record is automatically adjusted.
Before the system was introduced in April, the DLO used to input all figures by hand. This was prone to the occasional error. Now the codes are swiped in. This saves time in counting and data inputting. It also means tighter control of stock and ordering. In total, the DLO reckons the system saves more than £100,000 a year.
How electronic dockets can save you money
Have you ever thought how much time and money it costs to process an invoice? The latest industry estimates put the cost at £40-50 per invoice. And that is just for large contractors like Kvaerner and Balfour Beatty that have well staffed credit control departments. But for small contractors where project managers are also part-time credit controllers, the costs can be higher.
One company that has tackled this cost head on is concrete supplier Pioneer. It has developed, in conjunction with information service provider Microgen, a credit control system that keeps electronic versions of dockets and invoices. This system has produced savings in its first year of operation. Pioneer credit control manager Peter McMillan estimates that the company used to spend £70,000 a year chasing up lost dockets. The new system, he claims, has saved nearly all that money for the company.
Before Pioneer introduced electronic dockets, it kept records of delivery dockets in a dedicated room on the first floor of its Harrow headquarters. Each of the 25,000 dockets that Pioneer produces each year was photographed on to microfiche film and stored. If there were a query, for instance a contractor that couldn't find its docket, Pioneer would have to find its copy to prove delivery. This meant retrieving the right microfiche film, photocopying it and sending it out.
McMillan says: "It cost us in storage space, photocopying, stamps and people time, not to mention the interest we were losing on the cash owed to us."
Now dockets are sent to a special bureau that scans them. The electronic images of the dockets are stored on servers run by Microgen. And when there is a query, any of the Pioneer credit control team can log on to the Microgen-run site, bring up the docket electronically and e-mail it to the contractor that is querying the delivery.
The costs are much reduced. Microgen charges Pioneer to store the electronic records. But this is a small amount compared with the cost of the storage space. There are no photocopying charges, no postage charges, fewer outstanding debts, and less time is spent producing the copies – it took three staff to work the old docket retrieval and photocopying service.
McMillan says: "It doesn't improve outstanding daysales – if contractors don't want to pay within 30 days they will still ignore an invoice, but the time it takes us to respond is much quicker."
There are three levels of storage with three corresponding storage charges. The highest charge is for "rapid storage". This kind of storage allows instantaneous retrieval, and dockets exist in this level for three to six months, says McMillan. The next level is "active", where retrieval rates are a little slower, but nearly instantaneous, according to McMillan.
An extra charge is levied to retrieve dockets from the third level of storage.
Now, says McMillan, contractors are starting to insist on e-billing and e-dockets. "We've seen tenders where contractors specify that all bills should be handled electronically and electronic dockets should be used."
Source
Construction Manager
