COMSS Limited was set up in 2010 by Brian Loughran, a veteran of the Irish construction industry, and a young Irish software talent, John Tallon. This combination of skills and experience has enabled them to develop breakthrough software applications, which they claim can help reinvigorate the construction sector in Ireland.
When Loughran retired from the construction industry in 2009, the recession had already hit the industry hard. The switch from boom to bust in the Irish construction sector was exceptional – gone were the times of over-demand and strong margins. Without exception, every sector of the construction industry was affected and the industry saw the value of output across the sector, as well as the levels of supply and demand, fall below normal levels.
Loughran recognised that to survive this shift, a construction company would need to focus more than ever on project profitability by understanding project costs and making fast, informed decisions. But, his review of the business software that was available to construction companies identified that it simply did not provide the right information in an affordable and easy-to-run format.
“I knew that information, and information technology, would be key to the long-term growth of our sector, so I decided to start a software company to deliver a new kind of software application that’s optimised for the challenging market we live in,” said Loughran, who is now chair of COMSS. “This meant that at the heart of the software application, there had to be a series of business rules that would enable profit generation.”
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KEY WORKFLOWS
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Brian Loughran[/caption]
As a starting point, Loughran identified all the key workflows in a construction project and stripped these down to make them as lean and easy to administer as possible. Tallon then built the applications to embody this lean approach in the features and functions of the software.
For example, all the modules are designed to draw on a common record, so that data only has to be entered once. This eliminates a lot of repetition found in other software packages, saving users – and the business – significant time and money. The construction is also fully integrated, so that data entered at one stage of a project is automatically available at another – this is vital if the user wants full visibility on the profit status of a project.
This integrated approach also extends to the user interface, which is designed to make it easy for the same person to move between the various modules without significant training.
“In the almost 40 years that I’ve been involved with construction, initially with a construction company and latterly as a software provider, I’ve identified a number of profit traps," Loughran explained. "Our software is designed to avoid these traps and thus increase the ability to make a profit,” Loughran explained. To be able to unlock profit from construction projects, COMSS has identified six areas of focus:
- Managing waste;
- Optimising the use of plant;
- Allocating overheads to projects;
- Eliminating supplier overpayment;
- Managing post tender resource costs; and
- Managing subcontractor liabilities.
REMOVE PROFIT TRAPS
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John Tallon[/caption]
COMSS modules are designed to remove these commonly occurring profit traps and enable the Irish construction industry to increase the profitability of projects in a tough market. By taking these areas of focus into consideration and engaging with customers and with domain experts, COMSS developed the InBusiness Construction Suite.
This package integrates all the software functions required to improve financial and operational visibility across the entire construction project lifecycle, including: estimating, job costing, accounting, sub-contractor management and plant management. As a result, the software helps solve the problem of delayed costs awareness, by highlighting where actual costs exceed estimated costs. It also provides quick and informative project profitability reporting and alerts to warn of potential profit risks.
Tallon, who is director of product development at COMSS, said that the software package provided all the functions a company needed to run a lean and profitable construction business. “All the modules are optimised to make a profit from a project and respond to competitive pressure by enabling construction companies to take the right action at the right time,” he explained.
“We created the InBusiness Construction Suite because we recognised that just working harder is no longer a solution. Irish construction companies need the software tools to succeed in the world we live in today; they don’t want to use something that was created during a boom economy.”
He said that COMSS was determined to help organisations to challenge and change the way they operate and remove the barriers to project profitability. The COMSS development centre is based in Longford. It is a Microsoft BizSpark company and its construction suite is endorsed by the Construction Industry Federation of Ireland.
Call Richie Loughran at 04333 93212 for more information or visit www.comss.org.