Live view
Who's where, without ringing anyone.
One screen that says who clocked on, which job they're on and which machines went out. It fills itself in as the morning runs, off the clock-ons your crew already do. You read it from the ute.
The problem
Nobody can tell you where everyone is.
Not because anyone is hiding it. Because it is in four blokes' heads, and the only way to get it out is to ring all four and hope they pick up.
Three calls for one answer
Someone asks how many you've got on a job. You ring the leading hand, he rings two others, and you get back to them after lunch.
The board was right at six
By nine a machine has moved, two blokes are on another job, and nobody has been back to the whiteboard to rub anything out.
You find out on Friday
A machine sat doing nothing from smoko onwards. You work it out at the end of the week, when the hours don't match what the job was meant to cost.
How it works
Nobody fills it in. That is the whole idea.
The crew start their day
They clock on and sign their pre-start the way they already do. There is no extra step for anyone, and nothing new to remember.
The board builds itself
Every clock-on, every signed sheet and every machine that leaves the yard lands on it the minute it happens. It is made of what they did.
You look, instead of asking
Phone in the ute, iPad on the office wall, laptop at home on a Sunday. Same board, same minute, no phone call to anyone.
For the crew
It counts heads. It knocks off when you do.
The board says how many are on a job and which machines went out. While a bloke is on the clock it also takes a location fix, and that is where it stops: not on a break, not after he clocks off, and not because somebody in the office ticked a box. The database itself refuses a location for anyone who isn't on the clock. Tell your crew that on day one, because it is the first thing they will ask.
The day
Every answer, with a time on it.
Answer it yourself
When someone rings asking whether the excavator got there, you look and you tell them. Nobody has to chase it up and ring you back.
In order, with the minute on it
Every event carries the time it happened. A question about this morning gets a straight answer instead of somebody's best recollection.
The sheet, then the machine
The pre-start was signed at 06:04. The machine went out at 06:12. In that order, on one screen, without anyone going looking for either of them.
The board keeps the day after it has finished, so a question in three weeks gets the same answer as a question at smoko.
Stop ringing around.
Put one morning's crews on it and look at the board at smoko. Either it answers the question faster than your phone does, or it doesn't.
7 days free. No card, no contract.