HCSS 2020 Q2 Newsletter

Fall 2020

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www.hcss.com

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13151 W. Airport Blvd., Sugar Land, TX 77478

HCSSNEWS

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1-800-683-3196

Customer Gets More Software and Pays Less with New Unlimited User Plan

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he Eclipse Companies started using HCSS HeavyBid in 2013 and immediately saw value. “We started producing better bids in a fraction of the time,” says Agresta, “and we loved the support. So when it came time to get our field automated it just made sense to look at HeavyJob. From there, we quickly rolled out new parts of the HCSS solution in order to solve different problems at the company and make us more efficient.”

Now using 7 different HCSS products across the organization, Eclipse looked into the new “Unlimited User Plan”, which allows companies to use the HCSS platform across the entire organization without having to pay on a perperson basis.

Instead, for just 0.2% of your revenue—or less—your team gains full access to our trusted estimating, operations, and fleet management software. Our products scale up with you, allowing you to grow your business more efficiently and do more with less. The goal is that every aspect of your business can be efficient, collaborative, and data-driven.

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info@hcss.com

As an Unlimited User customer, your employees have unlimited access to all applications listed below:

What Agresta was not expecting was that the price of the Unlimited User Plan was actually less than what he was already paying. “I was floored, and said the phrase ‘sign us up’ before our salesman even finished the sentence.”

The reason that Tom’s price went down is because he already had all of our products, and when the formula gave him credit for everything that he had already purchased, it was, in effect, a discount for having 7 products.

While we don’t expect most companies to see a drop in price, we do know that putting key information and tools in the hands of every person at your company can lead to powerful increases in the efficiency and profitability of a business.

Get your custom price quote from your HCSS sales rep, call 833-506-0492, or click here and let’s explore how much more efficient your business can become.

(Base offering only)

Jobsite Paper is Costing You $10,000 per Foreman Each Year Why You Can’t Afford to Wait on Going Paperless

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f you’re still managing your field on paper, or if your “paperless” jobsite starts with paper in the field, then get scanned for digital storage, there’s at least $10,000 a year per foreman up for grabs. How do we figure that?

True paperless jobsites are digital from the source, with foremen inputting and handling every jobsite document--time card and payroll information, safety, equipment, plan sets, or customer-required documents--digitally from the field. Here’s how that saves money:

• Faster entry time. Inputting data using a simple, digital interface can easily save foremen 30 minutes per day. Over the course of a year, that’s about $5,000 per foreman if we assume a fully burdened hourly rate of $45.

• More efficient payroll. Since data flows automatically into payroll, most companies can repurpose at least one full-time employee in payroll or grow without adding payroll personnel. Let’s assume a payroll administrator, fully burdened at $60,000, can process timecards for 15 crews. One-fifteenth of their time saves another $4,000 per foreman annually.

• No clerical mistakes. Providing digital documentation at the source helps eliminate mistakes and time wasted reviewing and verifying unclear handwriting, waiting for paper time cards to be driven to

the office, reconciling invoices for materials, and digging into banker boxes of paper to deal with audits. Removing wasted effort easily saves a company another $1,000 per foreman each year.

That’s an easy $10k per year saved for every foreman you have. But the advantages go even further:

• Catch & correct mistakes early. Having the right info at your fingertips allows you to catch errors early and make corrections in real time. If you saved only one crewhour per month at an average crew cost of $350 per hour by catching an error early with better data, that’s another $4,000 per foreman each year. If you saved two, that’s $8,000 per foreman.

• Meet COVID safety needs. Reducing the person-to-person contact of collaborating and communicating through paper is critical for COVID safety on work sites.

• Empower every employee with knowledge. Get real-time insight into job costs and productivity at every level. Make every employee a knowledge worker, equipped with the information to make good decisions and plan ahead.

If you want to explore what a paperless field could do for you, call us at 833-506-0492 or click here.

New Feature: Your Accounting Data & HCSS Product Data in One, Central Place

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ou’ve been asking for accounting system integrations for HCSS Intelligence, our business intelligence platform–and we’ve delivered.

We now have pre-built integrations with Viewpoint and Foundation, allowing you to seamlessly bring in your accounting data alongside your HCSS product data for a single, consolidated source of reporting.

This is particularly valuable to project managers who can have relevant data that combine both aspects of their jobs directly from HeavyJob Project Management and accounting data sent directly to their email without having to go to another platform for the information.

With no impact on your IT department, you can create and automate reporting about many operational areas of your company in one central location and have access to your reports wherever you have Internet. Here are a few features that help keep your stakeholders informed:

Viewpoint and Foundation are the first accounting systems with prebuilt connections, but our team is working to continue to integrate other accounting systems. Reach out to us if there is another system you’re interested in connecting, and we work on making those connections as well.

Out of the box, HCSS Intelligence can now pull job, account, and customer information, invoices, change orders, billings, cash receipts, and terms such as customer-specific discounts out of your accounting system and combine with information from HCSS products for really convenient financial reporting for those who are not usually in the accounting systems.

• Automated scheduling will send reports via email to any email address.

• Dashboards have a ‘presentation’ feature so you can run reporting meetings with one click.

• Reports can be saved with different filters applied so the target audience receives only the information pertinent to them.

While the integration allows you to easily build custom reports with accounting data, our pre-built reports are immensely valuable right out of the box. For example, our pre-built AP Invoice Summary by Job report lets your team easily track when invoices have been paid or are overdue in one clear, concise report, with a subreport link to the invoices themselves.

If you’re interested in seeing how HCSS Intelligence can help you get access to more information quicker, reach out to your sales rep, call us at 833-506-0492, or click here.

Top 3 Can’t-Miss Features Our Free Trucking Customers Discovered

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uring the early months of COVID-19, we offered HCSS Trucking for free to help customers take advantage of paperless technology. Asphalt pavers, sitework designers, waste management haulers, mobilization crews, and even beer distributors took us up on the offer! These are the three features that our free users found most valuable:

• Command Alkon integration: HCSS Trucking’s integration with Command Alkon’s scale ticketing platform was one of the heaviest used features. Material ticket data passed from the scale over to HCSS Trucking to track both the material quantities as well as the productivity of trucks. Customers could see the actual scale quantities in HeavyJob almost instantly. This solves one of the most difficult paper problems around trucking operations and gives foremen true quantities to calculate production rates.

• Truck Driver App: Drivers were able to track their work hours in the HCSS Truck Driver’s App, and foremen could pull these hours into the HCSS Field timecard with a couple of taps on an iPad. Drivers logged hours to cost codes, recorded material quantities

for each haul, and received schedule updates for the day within the HCSS Truck Driver’s App designed for both iOS and Android.

Foremen had full control to modify and approve hours and material quantities before sending them into the office for payroll and cost analysis.

• Beacons and Loadbots: We shipped nearly 1,000 Bluetooth beacons to customers during the Free Trucking period, and when paired with loadbots, these inexpensive hardware devices kept track of 3rd-party trucks and calculated cycle times and load counts. These 3rd-party trucks are now outfitted with the technology that allows for anyone to track them with HCSS Trucking in the future.

Although the Free Trucking period has ended, bringing on HCSS Trucking remains extremely cost-effective at just $4 per truck tracked per day. that the truck is working. Take advantage of our Command Alkon partnership and HeavyJob integration, and only pay for what you use. Give us a call at 833-506-0492 today or click here.

A New Version of HCSS Aerial is Available!

We’ve added three new features to HCSS Aerial, our drone software solution for job site mapping and data visualization:

• Enhanced Accuracy Report / Checkpoints Support – Validate model accuracy with checkpoints–no expensive hardware needed! Get full transparency with accuracy reports listing checkpoints’ and GCPs’ information, residuals and errors.

• Local Coordinate System Support – Set and use your local coordinate system for geo-referencing and seamless integration with your workflow.

• Terrain Filtering – When HCSS Aerial generates models and maps, it uses automatic filtering when generating terrains: removing vegetation to buildings for more accurate volumetric measurements and analytics.

Terrain Filtering with HCSS Aerial

A New Version of HCSS Aerial is Available! - continued HCSS Aerial customers are using the tool to easily track execution progress over time with the ability to compare “digital twin” models of the job site from different dates and against the design. See earthwork progress, report on inventory, and track changes with 3D surveys captured quickly, safely, and cost effectively. Site documentations and reports are generated in less than 24 hours on big jobs, not weeks, and only hours on small jobs.

Many customers use volumetric calculations and analysis as progress indicators of their projects, and also track earthwork quantities more accurately to avoid making mistakes like underestimating or overestimating material and cut vs. fill.

Kyson Spendlove, UAV Pilot at Interstate Rock Products in Utah, currently monitors multiple sites and said, "Over the past couple of years, I have had the opportunity to work with a couple of different drone programs. While these drone processing programs are very high quality and have had years to be perfected, I do not feel that they are as focused on the civil construction field as HCSS Aerial. I am very impressed with the way that HCSS Aerial is heading and the changes that have been made.”

Our Upcoming Features for 2020:

• Integration among HCSS products – HCSS Aerial APIs enable data exchange with HCSS products such as HeavyJob, HeavyBid, and HCSS Safety.

• Mission Planning App for Drones – Flight planning drone app will enable automated data capture (photo shooting) from the construction site.

• Automatic Identification of Elements & Objects – Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, HCSS Aerial will automatically identify defined and structured elements and objects (such as manholes, utility poles, railways and more), and measure and quantify them for tracking, analysis, and comparison to design.

• Volume Grid Reports – Automatic generation of volume grid

Kyson Spendlove, Draftsman/UAV Pilot at Interstate Rock Products in Utath, monitoring eight sites with HCSS Aerial

reports according to industry standards.

• Checklist Reports – Automatic generation of checklist reports according to industry standards based on design imports.

To learn more about HCSS Aerial and what’s to come with our drone software solution, contact JP Giometti at jp.giometti@hcss.com.

We will be hosting a webinar Sept. 17 at 2pm CT to showcase HCSS Aerial's capabilities and case studies of the platform in action.

Register here.

What the Gold Standard for Paperless Fleet Management Looks Like

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e’ve partnered with fleet management industry veteran, Andy Agoos, for a unique, four-part webinar series on how to unlock the full potential of your shop and fleet by going paperless. He’ll share the best practices he’s used and taught in his 45-year career at organizations like Caterpillar, Hubbard, and more.

In addition, these webinars will feature Technical Product Manager, Hayden Price, who will share tips and tricks for how Equipment360, FuelerPlus and Telematics can support these best practices.

Whether you are new to HCSS, use other non-fleet HCSS products or already own Equipment360/FuelerPlus/Telematics, you’ll benefit from

the webinar series. So, join us, learn, invite your peers, ask questions and let us know how we can help!

Part one, “Establishing a Solid Foundation for a Paperless Shop”, can be viewed on demand here.

Register and join us for the next three in the series:

• September 3 | Building a Healthy Fleet using Paperless Data • October 1 | Keeping an Eye on Usage via Paperless Metrics

• November 5 | Maintaining Your Fleet Day-to-Day the Paperless Way

REGISTER NOW

Sophie Rydin, a Major Part of HCSS, Dies of Cancer

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CSS lost an important part of our family on July 28 with the passing of Sophie Rydin after a 2-year battle with cancer. Long our VP of HR, Sophie’s fingerprints are on so much of the company and influence many of the things that we repeatedly hear from you as things you enjoy about doing business with HCSS. If you’ve ever been to an HCSS User Group Meeting or to our offices, it is likely you have your own story of meeting Sophie – she was memorable!

In the early days of HCSS, Sophie helped formulate our strategy that creating a great place to work would result in giving service to our customers that would stand out. Her generosity, coaching, and focus on our employees generated a culture where what mattered most was the customer – helping them with whatever they needed help with, whether the problem was our software or something else entirely. So, if you enjoy the support you get from HCSS, you are experiencing a bit of Sophie’s influence and legacy.

Eventually, HCSS was recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in Texas, a list we have been on for 13 years.

Sophie also influenced many within our company with her tireless work ethic and boundless energy. An avid runner, painter, piano player, teacher, and Occupational Therapist, she was always juggling many responsibilities. That energy has inspired us over the years to take on more ambitious goals than we otherwise would have.

We will miss Sophie tremendously, but honor her legacy with the way we do business. If you have a story to share about Sophie,

please email it to us at Sophie.Stories@hcss.com. We would love to include that in a booklet we are creating to share with future HCSS team members.

There will be a Celebration of Life Event for Sophie on the 12-acre HCSS campus (lots of room for social distancing) on Saturday, September 19th from 4 pm to 7 pm with the formal service at 5:30.

We will have extensive measures in place related to COVID-19 safety. Anyone is welcome to attend.

To learn more about Sophie's Celebration of Life event, Click Here

Fun Newsletter Stories from Mike and Sophie

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ike wrote a newsletter article in 2003 about his wife’s cooking, and in the next newsletter she responded. We think you will find these articles humorous, constructive, and they will give you a little more insight into Sophie.

The Thankless Task of Being the Family Cook

By Mike Rydin, 2003

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y wife does most of the cooking at our house. Recently it has dawned on me that she does not get all of the appreciation she deserves. In fact, she gets very little appreciation.

Periodically she gets excited and prepares a “new” dish.

Unfortunately her reward is that the boys usually complain or outright refuse to eat it. They prefer to go without food, and, thus, make my wife feel guilty as well as discourage her from trying new things. Sometimes, her experiments are total failures and then I join with the boys in complaining. That must be very discouraging.

I am amazed how she still continues to try new things.

I would like to point out, though, that communicating what you like or dislike is good. If you don’t say anything, you will continue to get the same thing served. The other day she asked why I didn’t eat all of what she thought was my favorite rice dish. I then informed her after 17 years of marriage and eating rice regularly, that I really didn’t like rice that much and preferred potatoes.

What a surprise that was to her. Not saying anything about rice for 17 years was a huge mistake on my part. Since my boys have been raised on rice, they don’t care for potatoes, so I am doomed to rice until they go off to college.

I now, however, try to make it a point to compliment my wife anytime I especially like the food (which is quite often), even when it is the same dish she has served many times before. I have really liked most of the food she has served over the years and am truly amazed how many wonderful things she can prepare. However, it never occurred to me to say anything about it until I started noticing how many complaints she receives versus compliments.

The moral of this story is that if there is something about your spouse that you really like, don’t keep it a secret like I did – tell them. After all, it’s nice to know that you’re appreciated.

Mike’s Wife Speaks Out

By Sophie Rydin, 2003

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fter receiving many sympathetic consolations during the User’s Group Meeting as a result of Mike’s last newsletter article about my cooking, I felt compelled to write the newsletter article this quarter.

“What are we having for dinner tonight? How long til we eat? Can we eat at Taco Bell?” These are the questions I dread every night.

Driving home from work every day, I have to think about what to cook for dinner that my whole family will enjoy. It’s always a challenge to fix a perfect meal when Mike doesn’t like chicken and the boys don’t like fish, potatoes and vegetables. And now I learn after 18 years that Mike never really liked rice!

Since I rarely received any recognition for slaving in the kitchen, whenever anyone compliments me on a dish, I file it away in my brain as a “perfect dish.” I then serve that dish at least once a week. Apparently, however, I serve it until everyone gets sick of it. My shrimp dishes, salmon dishes, rack of lamb and mu shu pork, which at one time were perfect dishes, are now only tolerated, if eaten at all. After 18 years, my dinner repertoire is shrinking.

I was glad to see in the last article that Mike has started to recognize that I am not complimented enough for my cooking efforts. But, he only knows the half of it – the half after the cooking is done. He still doesn’t know the half about figuring out what to prepare. Perhaps he should help but I prefer he stays out of my kitchen.

Before Mike met me, he took an Indian cooking class with the intent to meet women. He never met a prospective wife in that class, but he claimed he learned how to cook some Indian dishes. When we were dating, he tried to impress me with his cooking. He exhausted himself in the kitchen for over an hour, and he served me a steamed chicken with green grape dish topped with all kinds of Indian spices. (He likes to use all of them in the same dish – in fact, in every dish.) The entire kitchen countertop was completely covered with spices and debris. I barely ate the dinner and decided to end his cooking career by marrying him. Mike has not cooked another Indian dish since.

We all take too many little things for granted, and sometimes we forget to thank others for what they have done for us. Cooking is just one example of how Mike and I learned to communicate with each other and understand the important things in a marriage – compliment and appreciate each other at every opportunity and have a sense of humor, even when I learned after 18 years that Mike doesn’t like rice. Best of all, I learned what to serve him for dinner when I’m not happy with him!

Fall 2020

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www.hcss.com

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13151 W. Airport Blvd., Sugar Land, TX 77478

HCSSNEWS Bid News R-40284-A On East Street from 230 Feet South of 196th Street to SR 38

Gradex Inc........................................................................................ $7,199,000.00 E & B Paving LLC...........................................................................$7,398,200.00 Rieth Riley Construction...............................................................$7,566,500.17 White Construction LLC..............................................................$7,572,849.37 3D Company Inc........................................................................... $7,926,276.00

MI

NH 2020(185) Interchange IH 35 at Williams Drive

J.D. Abrams, L.P.............................................................................$61,721,947.65 Webber, LLC..................................................................................$62,070,195.55 James Construction Group, L.L.C........................................$62,326,326.90 Fluor Heavy Civil, LLC................................................................$63,741,792.38 Jordan Foster Construction, LLC.......................................... $64,665,480.17 Ohl USA, Inc.................................................................................$69,009,602.07

FL

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info@hcss.com

WEBINARS

9/3 @ 11am CST | Building a Healthy Fleet using Paperless Data 9/10 @ 10am CST | High-Impact Features: Production Planner in HeavyJob 9/15 @ 12:30pm CST | Con Edison Success Story: Lifecycle Alignment of Project Cost using HeavyBid 9/17 @ 2pm CST | Innovations in Earthwork Progress Tracking with HCSS Aerial 10/1 @ 11am CST | Keeping an Eye on Usage via Paperless Metrics

63000-206954 Maple Road from Inkster Road to Franklin Road

Dan’s Excavating, Inc....................................................................... $4,294,112.11 Angelo Iafrate Construction Company................................. $4,334,982.17 DiPonio Contracting, Inc.............................................................. $4,449,173.77 V.I.L. Construction, Inc...................................................................$4,551,001.77

TX

1-800-683-3196

Upcoming Events

HCSS HeavyBid customers are denoted with green text.

IN

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419243-4-52-01 Polk County Contract T1754

Prince Contracting, LLC.............................................................. $44,711,727.00 JR. Davis Construction Co, Inc.............................................. $45,948,895.41 Russell Engineering, Inc...........................................................$48,879,081.38 Thalle Construction Co., Inc......................................................$49,376,767.18 Cone & Graham, Inc.................................................................$52,022,706.60 Hubbard Construction Company........................................$53,895,386.38 Granite Construction Company.......................................... $56,950,585.50 Middlesex Corporation (The).................................................$58,872,933.32 Superior Construction Company Southeast, LLC...........$63,778,190.00

11/5 @ 11am CST | Maintaining Your Fleet Day-to-Day the Paperless Way

HEAVYBID VIRTUAL TRAINING HEAVYBID 101 Learn how to use HeavyBid. We’ll cover all the essentials — from basic setup to bid review and bid closing.

9/3 - 9/4 from 8am - 4pm CST HeavyBid 101 - Online

10/1 - 10/2 from 8am - 4pm CST HeavyBid 101 - Online

9/17 - 9/18 from 8am - 4pm CST HeavyBid 101 - Online

10/15 - 10/16 from 8am - 4pm CST HeavyBid 101 - Online

HEAVYBID 201

Learn more advanced HeavyBid features. This class is designed for those who know the fundamentals of HeavyBid and would like to take advantage of its more advanced features.

9/24 - 9/25 from 8am - 4pm CST HeavyBid 201 - Online

10/22 - 10/23 from 8am - 4pm CST HeavyBid 201 - Online

Learn More at www.hcss.com/events

FEBRUARY 15-18, 2021 Houston, Texas