Frequently asked questions
Does C-Birt only work for residential developments?
C-Birt works for any construction project. It is simply a matter of breaking your project into a sequence of tasks, which is what we do best.
When a project is in progress, does the back office have to keep creating new tasks each week for C-Birt to issue?
Absolutely not. That's the beauty of C-Birt: once the project is loaded, everything is hands free. Let's say you're building 500 homes, and each home has 100 steps in production. That's 50,000 individual tasks. C-Birt schedules every one of these tasks, and issues each one as its predecessor is completed. Tasks in procurement, warehousing, logistics, sub-assemblies and sales all revolve around the project execution tasks. The project will run from beginning to end without any manual task creation.
How flexible is C-Birt at handling change orders?
C-Birt excels at handling change orders. At any point in the project you can make changes. You are free to re-order the sequence of activities, eliminate or add new activities, change the materials used, update the quality control checklist...anything. Once the change is entered, everything in the ecosystem adjusts to the new reality. The Procurement and Warehousing teams may not even be aware that a change was made. Their tasks will be silently adjusted to ensure the new reality is covered; they just simply proceed with their tasks.
I notice that C-Birt was developed and tested in Jamaica. Will it work for projects in other countries?
Bredrin, if it works in Jamaica, it will work anywhere!
Seriously though, aside from modifications to payroll to match your local tax laws (not a big deal), C-Birt will work anywhere.
Will my Sales team have to switch from their current CRM software when we start using C-Birt?
No. They can continue using their existing CRM to handle customer interactions if they wish. But you should require them to check in with C-Birt before they sell upgrade packages, and when they need specific information on a given unit, like what kind of expansion plans are allowed, expected date of completion etc. And when they actually sell an upgrade it is critical that they enter this in C-Birt.
If I'm using C-Birt to build a project with multiple copies of one or two house models, do all the houses of a given type have to be identical in order for C-Birt to handle everything?
No. Houses of a given model type can have optional upgrades (like air conditioning packages) that only get installed if the customer opts in. And they can also have custom features that the developer or customer chooses ahead of time for each house, like exterior paint colours or tile choices. Actually, C-Birt opens up your projects for a lot more variety and customisation, because the complexity normally associated with giving the customer lots of choices is handled gracefully. The only constraint is that these choices need to be made far enough in advance so that procurement will not be a problem.
How do the procurement and project management teams work together on C-Birt when it comes to ordering concrete, especially when the pour happens outside of normal business hours?
Excellent question! Concrete ordering is a big deal, and presents unique challenges: the product is perishable, and can't be safely ordered until the team doing the pour is 100% ready to receive it. C-Birt handles this with his usual ease: the procurement team chooses the concrete supplier and negotiates prices and terms ahead of time. But the actual ordering of the concrete is done by the project manager after she has completed her pre-pour checklist. The quantity and type of concrete needed for the pour is already locked in. When the PM requests the concrete, C-Birt sends the vendor a PO, including directions to the location of the pour and contact info for the PM receiving it. The PM acknowledges receipt of the concrete on C-Birt. Ordering more concrete than budgeted for the activity (like in the case of formwork failure) requires a Head PM or Senior Management override.
Do you really limit sub-contractor teams to only being assigned one task at a time? I can understand how forcing a team to complete a task before giving them another one is great for quality control, but this seems like it would slow down the project.
You're right, it can be impractical to limit a team strictly to one in-progress activity. Typically, C-Birt will be configured to allow 2 or 3 in-progress activities for a team. This allows the team to optimise their execution of the task if they have some people who specialise in the beginning of the task (like laying tiles) versus the end of the task (like grouting). But once that 2- or 3-activity maximum is hit, the team will have to bring one of those tasks to 100% completion before being assigned another. This way you get speed and efficiency without giving up quality control.
What's the most difficult part of C-Birt to implement on the ground?
That's easy: the warehouse/logistics team. This has nothing to do with C-Birt, really. Warehousing and logistics on a fast-moving site require a professional team. Managing the daily in- and outflow of products while keeping things physically organised and maintaining accurate inventory stock counts is no joke. Don't skimp on your warehouse team--get good people. And your warehouse manager has to hold the line on protocol: if PMs can get the warehouse manager to deliver goods to the field without the corresponding activity being duly opened on C-Birt the integrity of the system breaks down. And keeping up with the delivery schedule is crucial for productivity. The warehouse is therefore both the gas and the brakes for the site.
Having said that, the most counter-cultural part of C-Birt to implement is holding the rule of not paying for incomplete work, surprising as that may sound.
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