Canadian construction company PCL has introduced an intelligent application to manage the shared use of resources, and track details of delivery and movement of materials to job sites.

Called Job Site Resourcing (JSR), it is integrated within PCL’s Job Site Insights (JSI) smart construction platform supporting smart job sites.

JSR is a mobile-enabled logistics management application designed specifically for the construction market. It monitors site resources including elevators, staging or unloading areas, and material handling equipment such as cranes and hoists.

Projects have control using availability and booking restrictions applied to the resources, and the authority to review the bookings requests for approvals. Using the JSR self-service mobile application for iOS or Android, subtrades and suppliers have access and transparency to the site calendar for availability of resources and autonomy to manage their bookings.

Automated notifications remind subtrades of their delivery appointments and notify project staff when new bookings have been created for review. Using the reporting and analytics features, projects can use the insights to monitor and adapt to increase the use of project resources and the overall efficiency of project staff managing the supply. This has a direct impact in decreasing operating costs on project sites.

“The trades jumped on board quickly, and now our site deliveries are running completely through online requests,” said Aaron Akehurst, project manager at PCL Construction. “This process streamlines superintendent approval and puts the onus back on the trades for determining weights and material routing. We are minimising printing, transfer of paper and removing the need to keep a delivery board updated on site. This is a fantastic tool which will bring value to any busy job site.”

JSR can be used as a standalone application or with the Job Site Insights IoT telemetry platform and is available immediately. It is also continuing to evolve.

“We’re getting great feedback from our project teams, and we’re on the finishing stages of completing a new feature we’re excited about – the ability to perform delivery evaluations against the booking requests, which will give projects the capability to record the details that occurred with the delivery,” said Dawn Kaasten, a PCL business systems analyst. “Was the delivery late? Was enough time scheduled for the event? Did the delivery occur as expected? Delivery evaluations can track the actual durations the resource was used compared to the time requested. All these details are mineable and summarised providing actionable analytics our projects have never been able to track before.”

PCL’s CIO Mark Bryant added: “Job Site Insights and its growing ecosystem of integrated applications like JSR is the leading smart construction ecosystem in the industry. Reducing costly rework, improving build quality and making improvements to productivity through proactive scheduling proves we are rewriting the history book of construction. The JSI ecosystem of products has proven to reduce manual labour costs, and enhance productivity gains – a must-have for all budget conscious construction organisations.”

PCL is a group of independent construction companies that carries out work across Canada, USA, Caribbean and Australia. These diverse operations in the civil infrastructure, heavy industrial and buildings markets are supported by a presence in 31 major centres. Together, these companies have an annual construction volume of more than $8bn.