Mike Carrozo
Editor
Constructech Magazine

...Competition was open to companies involved in the following areas: residential construction, commercial and heavy/highway construction, subcontractors in all trades, architectural and engineering firms, land developers, and government agencies. Entrants described their challenges, solutions, and the resulting benefits.

“The 2005 Vision Award winners represent some of the construction industry’s most successful companies. These companies have proven that selecting the appropriate technology can make a significant difference in their ability to be successful and profitable,” said Peggy Smedley, editorial director of Constructech magazine. “It is such a pleasure to recognize the accomplishments of each of the winners.”

Winners were selected by an independent panel of judges. This panel included: Christian Burger of Burger Consulting Group; Brad Holtz, Joel Orr, and Randall Newton of Cyon Research; Lee Smither and Richard Reese of FMI; and Kristine Fallon of Kristine Fallon Associates Inc. These men and women evaluated the entries based on what each company was able to accomplish by implementing technology solutions to resolve a critical business issue within its organization.

MCM was the recepient of the Gold Vision Award in the Heavy Highway category.
When it comes to pioneering in the realm of construction, MCM Corp., www.mcmcorp.com, Miami, Fla., fits the bill. Owned by the Munilla family, its roots in construction date back to the 1940’s when Fernando Munilla pioneered construction methodologies and systems specializing in precast, prestressed, and heavy structural construction in Cuba.

This same pioneering nature can be found within the company today with a staff that contains professionals with diverse specialties, ranging from general contracting, to civil engineering, to architecting and accounting. Within its management information systems department, its goal is to improve workflow and boost efficiency through sophisticated technology—which has been accomplished within two specific projects.

Looking for a new way to manage its massive list of vendors for the purpose of searching for subcontractors based on specific criteria during the bidding process, MCM implemented a highly customized Microsoft Outlook contact form programmed in VBScript and liked to an Access database. This allows the company to classify and search by more than 300 CSI codes, minority status, bonding, etc., to find the right subcontractor for the job.

Online subcontractor management services, such as BidExpress from Info Tech Inc., www.infotechfl.com, Gainesville, Fla., and DemandStar from Onvia, www.onvia.com, Seattle, Wash., are critical to this project as well.

Its second challenge was to keep track of payroll hours and equipment hours in job cost accounting. This was a very difficult task due to the large amount of jobs and number of rotating staff. Duplicate work was also an issue, as the hours were being entered at a trailer in the field within Excel and once again in the home office within its accounting software from Sage Software, www.sage.com, Irvine, Calif.

MCM implemented software from HCSS, www.hcss.com, Houston, Texas, in its civil division that integrates payroll and equipment information by exporting into the accounting package. Superintendents are able to mark employee hours via a handheld device and sync remotely to servers at the main office.

In its commercial division, it has implemented a highly customized and secure Access database that pulls employee and payroll information via open database connectivity from its Sage database to provide a project specific entry form for marking employee hours in the field.

Vision Awards judge Lee Smither says, "The estimating database search innovation is excellent in its integration of various technology tools."