Curious about how DACS uses Assignar in the face of COVID-19?
5 minutes
Intro
Denver Asphalt & Concrete Services provides the commercial and residential sectors of the Front range complete asphalt and concrete maintenance and repair services from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs and the Denver Metro area.
DACS specializes in commercial parking lots, industrial parking lots, residential driveways, asphalt paving, concrete work, and striping.
The company focuses on consulting customers to optimize projects and maximize value rather than simply selling. Their experienced team works with customers to stay within budget, meet deadlines, and minimize inconvenience.
DACS consists of multiple, specialized crews. At a given time, they can have up to 60 field workers, and have nine office staff that support them.
Whiteboards don’t cut it anymore
At DACS, we were using magnetic whiteboards to schedule. Since DACS offers a wide array of services, we used 6 boards in total to lay everything out.
To be frank, our scheduling process was less than crisp and clean. In fact, sometimes it was a complete mess, with illegible handwriting leading to mass confusion.
As we started to grow, that system became cumbersome. With the amount of work we had lined up, we were scheduling jobs a few months in advance while also keeping up with the near-term.
At the end of the year, our owner pushed for tech adoption in the business. We had a series of different challenges we were facing and we understood the benefits of moving to the cloud. We started with Google Drive, and after a few short months, we realized we needed more than that to get the job done right.
Evaluating over a dozen options
Our people are important to us, so we took everyone’s needs and “nice-to-haves” into consideration when we began our search. In a construction business, you’ll know that’s no easy feat: we were working with a wishlist from our schedulers, field crews, salespeople, and even our finance department.
One of our biggest requirements was that the new software be scalable.
“We’re growing and we needed something that was going to grow with us. Assignar simply stood out for everyone on the team.” — Jassen Smigay, VP of Operations
While we were excited about the potential Assignar showed, we still evaluated about 15 solutions.
“Tech is for our business and our people — it was critical to us that we were thorough in our evaluation.” — Jassen Smigay, VP of Operations
A seamless transition
The owner points this out all the time: we had a completely seamless transition. We had next-to-zero pushback when we rolled out Assignar.
We don’t consider our team to be “tech-savvy.” We’ve embraced a “can-do” culture at DACS. That, on top of how Assignar is laid out and its capabilities, created a frictionless transition to the software.
At DACS, we have a diverse team, and we weren’t expecting it to be easy to get everyone on the app. We have a guy with a full head of gray hair, and he didn’t struggle at all. He quickly took to the app and understood the value.
Dirty boots meet mobility and accountability
We wanted our sales guys to be as mobile as possible. Before Assignar, they were dropping in the office much too often to retrieve and print information to take to a job, which was obviously keeping them from making sales.
“We’ve reduced the sales team’s time in the office by 70%. Now they’re spending that time making sales. It’s been amazing.” — Jassen Smigay, VP of Operations
Assignar has undoubtedly changed the way that we communicate throughout the team. It’s a tool that has allowed us to establish greater accountability all the way down to the boots on the ground.
We’ve gotten an incredible response from our team — our crews are the ones taking the photos and getting all of the information that we need. We all love being able to see what’s going on and getting immediate notifications and updates.
The numbers don’t lie
Our entire team is operating within Assignar on a daily basis. Although it has only been a few months, we’re already seeing big changes in the way we work.
“With Assignar in the hands of our team, we’ve gotten to the point where our efficiency is unparalleled.” — Jassen Smigay, VP of Operations
| CHALLENGE | FEATURE/SOLUTION | RESULT |
| Accountability |
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| Operations Reporting |
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| Communication |
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| Safety |
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| Wasted time on pulling information |
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| Remote work |
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| Billing |
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Final thoughts
As our team continues to work together, new ideas keep flowing in. It usually starts with someone saying something like, “Hey, I’d like to start doing this activity. It would be helpful for this in the business.”
“‘Assignar can do that’ has practically been my mantra for the last few months.” — Jassen Smigay, VP of Operations
And it can.
The theme we’re seeing with Assignar in DACS is that it reduces the noise around each job. It helps us cut through the challenges on the ground: miscommunication, the inability to see what goes on, floods of phone calls and overflowing email inboxes.
“Before Assignar, we were always wondering ‘what happened with my job today?’ Now, we can see what is happening in real time without having to be there.” — Jassen Smigay, VP of Operations
We have reigned in our operational chaos. Now, we have the ability to resolve other challenges and focus on improving other parts of our business.
As a whole, we would recommend Assignar to just about anybody, including the contractors that have built their own internal software. The software is powerful and it is coupled with excellent support.
“Assignar in and of itself is a best practice in the industry.” — Jassen Smigay, VP of Operations
Want to learn more about how DACS uses Assignar?
5 minutes