Murphy Concrete and Construction is a third-generation, family owned heavy civil contracting business based in Appleton, Wis., that has been involved in asphalt construction for more than 33 years, providing materials to customers through their aggregate quarries, as well as constructing many of the roadways and much infrastructure across the state of Wisconsin.
With many pieces of equipment flowing through Murphy’s projects, it would be nearly impossible to keep up with the maintenance on each machine without an integrated work order and equipment management system—one that includes preventative maintenance.
After adding Vista by Viewpoint software, which delivers equipment management with preventative maintenance, Murphy Concrete and Construction was able to quickly track equipment and make rapid assignments and schedule upcoming maintenance to prevent project delays.
The price of poor job costing
Prior to using Vista, Murphy Concrete and Construction didn’t have job cost capabilities in their system and it was costing them. Sue Murphy, who works in operations for Murphy, says, “Our goal with Job Cost was to make sure all costs from payroll to payables was documented.”
Now the company can better track the progress and daily costs of their complex ongoing projects. With Vista, they can follow the status of a project, monitor for issues and cost overruns, and get a better picture of where a project landed in the end.
Moving forward with equipment management
Managing work orders and materials and keeping track of equipment usage and maintenance was previously a difficult task for Murphy Concrete. But since implementing Vista, the company quickly gained traction on more efficient equipment management and reporting.
Tiffany Wicker, IT supervisor, explains using software with equipment management and preventative maintenance capabilities helps her and her team track equipment, make quick assignments, and schedule upcoming maintenance: “The information coming in is simply better, quicker, and more accurate, and the reporting features are a lot better than we used to have. We are utilizing the work orders feature by importing them directly into payroll—the Payroll department loves this!”
Regarding equipment maintenance, Wicker says, “We use the standard maintenance module in Equipment Management and have it set up for all of our equipment. It allows us to follow through with work orders and alert maintenance people and managers about work that needs to be done.”
Wicker compared these benefits to using their previous methods: “It’s nice to have all of this located within the system rather than pulling from Excel like before. It’s more integrated, requires less work, and is prone to fewer errors. Plus the reporting out is so much better.”
Summing up her experience with Vista, Murphy says, “After so many years of doing things the old way, Vista has been a refreshing change for equipment, materials and project cost management. We look forward to doing even more with the software.”
