MVP delivers value to owners and contractors in the form of:
- Reduced Labor Expense
- Reduced Material Loss Expense
- Improvement in Construction Productivity
- Better Control & Predictability/Planning
Atlas RFID Solutions’ Materials Visibility Portal, or MVP, provides unprecedented visibility into the status and location of valuable materials en route to and subsequently on location at large lay down yard locations. Furthermore, MVP helps to significantly expedite the picking process of the desired materials. Since 2006, a number of trials and full scale implementations have successfully validated the value of using RFID technology in the material management process for large-scale, industrial construction projects. Companies that have used this technology have seen returns several times greater than their investment in the system.
All large, industrial construction projects are under certain time and budget constraints that could be positively impacted by the deployment of our solution. Examples of such positive impacts to a project include:
- Increased efficiencies in receiving and inventory control of pre-engineered components.
- Reduction in time and labor expense searching for components not immediately found.
- Reduction in time and labor expense associated with waiting on components not found.
- Reduction of costs and time impacts associated with re-procured components.
One of our clients has been able to reduce the amount of time to locate each pipe spool to less than 10 minutes in most cases and less than 5 minutes in some cases. This was a marked improvement from the amount of time that was originally budgeted/allocated for indirect man hours to locate each pipe spool when needed for construction on the project. While this is a great improvement and a reduction in indirect labor costs to the project, the greatest value is the predictability that the solution has provided to them. The client knows that they will find the exact pipe spool they are looking for every time they need to locate the spool based on the material request from construction. They are also able to know the spool was delivered to construction and installed thereby eliminating a situation where highly paid craft laborers are required to search through a lay down yard and construction site only to find that the spool has already been installed.
Solution Benefits
The MVP solution provides the following benefits which can be leveraged to help a customer justify the expenses associated with deploying the MVP solution:
- Increase in operational efficiency.
- Reduction in labor hours required by eliminating the need to search for material across the site.
- Eliminate the need for yearly inventory audits.
- Eliminate the manual recording of material location.
- Eliminate the need for a flagging crew.
- Reduction in risk to the overall project schedule.
- Delays can equal millions of dollars per day in liquidated damages.
- Better supplier exception management.
- Eliminating supplier delivery exceptions can have a huge impact on the productivity and profitability of the project.
- Reduction in costs associated with re-procurement and scrapping of construction materials.
- Typically, the lead times of pre-engineered components can be very long. The construction industry is very risk averse and needs to be able to locate material when needed for a construction sequence. If a pre-engineered component cannot be located when needed, construction can come to a standstill. As a result, the expense of fabricating the material and having it air shipped can be extremely expensive.
- Improvement in worker safety.
- Better utilization of construction assets.
- Cranes can be a million dollar asset with a crane operator that may make more than $50 per hour. Having that crane not working has a huge impact on productivity.
- Better utilization of construction site and reduction in land required for lay down yards.
- A paradigm shift – Use the entire site as a storage facility rather than just a lay down yard.
Example of Project Savings
The following provides an example of a project ROI for tracking 4,500 pre-fabricated pipe spools:
Tracking 4,500 Pipe Spools for 24 Months
- Total Estimated Labor Savings > $500,000
- Approximate RFID Deployment Costs ~ $200,000
- RFID Hardware Resell to 2nd Project @ Completion ~ $50,000
- Approximate Total Investment ~ $150,000
- Estimated Total Return > $350,000
- Estimated ROI > 233%
Other potential areas for project savings are:
- The elimination of re-procurement related charges due to material that is “not immediately found”, either temporarily or permanently. This can often become a huge number. If you think about it you probably have had this happen on one of your projects in the past. Ever thought you lost a stainless steel valve and had to bear the expense of doing whatever it takes to get a new valve to the project as to not hold up construction? Ever found that valve after the project was over or found that the valve had already been installed?
- The reduction of idle craft labor waiting on a material component that is “not immediately found”? This does happen, but can be hard to quantify in real dollars. However, most people agree this is a problem that occurs. A problem that could be eliminated by deploying MVP on your projects today.
Contact us today to see more examples of projected savings.