Efficiencies You Can Use, Courtesy of Marking Systems

Marking Systems emphasizes estimating and planning. But that’s not all the company does. Marking Systems has turned to other systems to improve efficiency and keep costs down.

• Marking Systems uses the Graco layout system (find its name) on any substantial job. “As far as big box stores go we’ve cut our layout time from three days to less than one day,” says President Mike Cumming. “Onsite that has been the biggest timesaver.”
• Use of LineDrivers on most jobs and on jobs of any real size.
• Cumming relies on Quikbooks Online so he can view the estimates sent out from all three locations as they’re sent out, and he can see it in real time. “By using QuickBooks Online everything is uniform. Our customers are not getting all these different-looking estimates from us, it all looks the same and the same is true of our invoicing,” he says. “That program enables me to do without a huge support staff and the overhead that goes along with that, and a low overhead helps us to be competitive.
• With three locations Marking Systems often trades employees from one job to another depending on schedules and the size of the projects. “We look to see what each other’s schedules are like and in many cases we can bid big jobs and exchange people to help one another out. That means a lot of travel and nights in hotels but all overnight stays and per diems are included in the bid for the job, everything down to the mile.” He says their ability to contribute workers as needed enable marking Systems to often put experienced, qualified people on a job where otherwise they would have had to hire inexperienced local laborers. “Maybe if we have one experienced guy on the job we save the cost of two laborers,” Cumming says. “Plus we’ll probably get the work done better and quicker, and we can get the invoice out sooner and we can get on to the next job.”