Building A Home From The Palm Of Your Hand? by Dena Amoruso The salesperson may be an absolute gem. The model homes may look flawless. The builder may have a stellar reputation for quality and customer service. But in all the years I was involved in the sales and marketing of new homes, there is no single person my hat would come off for quicker than the guy who oversees building the house itself - the building superintendent. No matter how glitzy and fluffy the business of new home sales can sometimes be, none of it would mean much unless the product itself lived up to the standards the home builder set forth for himself, delivering it on time, with every pre-ordained stick, option, and upgrade in place. The details involved in building one single family home would make those of us who have never nailed a board in the air absolutely dizzy with awe. These individuals manage the coordination of every product, trade, and person who touches a new home, and they do it like the conductor of a huge orchestra. Ask any superintendent what drives him craziest about his job, however, and the answer most would make was "paper work and phone calls." No single end-of-the-century innovation may be more cutting-edge for builders than the hand-held computer/organizer. This palm-sized device is finding its way into builders' budgets in greater and greater numbers, saving precious time, money, and headaches, helping to eliminate the need for voluminous paper trails. It can enable the superintendent to keep the details of every home under construction, helping to him to manage his crews, communicate with his trades, suppliers, and corporate offices using his fingertips. Founded in 1992 by Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky, Palm Computing, Inc. led the resurgence of hand-held computing in 1996 with introduction of its Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000 products. The Palm Computing subsidiary of 3Com Corporation recognized the increasing need for mobility in information management, revolutionizing individual productivity. Integrating this device into new home construction was not only a natural process, but also a sorely needed one in the industry. Because of the nature of geographically diverse workforces coming together to build a single home over a period of months, the Palm computers were found to provide fast, easy, remote access to networked resources, using electronic communication instead of the increasingly antiquated hard-copy variety. With a hand held computer, builders can now keep track of meetings, send work orders to suppliers, keeping a consistent flow of information and detail running smoothly and on time and on budget. As the front line of contact between their corporate offices, their homebuyers, subcontractors and inspectors, they no longer need to spend entire mornings bogged down in phone calls for assigning and scheduling work using these high-tech devices. Missed deadlines result in higher costs, complex schedules and ultimately in unhappy homebuyers. With faster, more accurate methods of tracking projects and communicating instructions to crews, contractors and suppliers, the hand-held computers can facilitate field personnel by collecting and reviewing issues, and then transferring them to the desktop, faxing task lists to project participants. At the work site or on the road, builders can now keep "to do" lists, monitor work in progress, update project timelines, and even collect notes and sketches of work to be performed. With shirt-pocket portability, the Palm computers enable builders to move between construction sites, supplier locations and offices with ease. Back at their desks, superintendents can now use the specially designed programs, designed by Punch List software, to synchronize the mountain of data and attach it to WinFax, then sending it to dozens of individuals involved in a project at any given time. Builder Software Tools, Inc. is the exclusive outlet for Punchlist software, and will be on hand at the National Builders Show in Dallas, TX January 14-17, to demonstrate their products. For more information on Palm Computing products and Punch List software, visit www.Palm.com and www.PunchList.com. As one of the last truly hand-built products, new homebuilders are under greater and greater scrutiny to deliver well-built homes on time and on budget, complying with increasingly stringent code regulations and inspections. With the help of state-of-the-art components such as these handy little devices, building superintendents can exert greater control over their handiwork and free up valuable time to devote themselves to the quality we, as consumers, deserve when making such a huge investment. |
