Introduction

New Berlin Grading is a general contracting company in Wisconsin that specializes in demolition, grading, and other heavy civil construction projects. With a fleet of over 100 pieces of equipment operating across 20-30 jobsites daily, New Berlin struggled to effectively schedule, dispatch, and track maintenance. After searching for a solution for over 3 years, New Berlin partnered with IVO Systems to implement an integrated operations platform.

We were trying to get on something with a software program for a lot of years already. We've been looking probably for at least three years. We couldn't find anything that suited all of our needs, both in maintenance and in tracking systems. -Bob Baier, Shop Superintendent

Evaluating Software Solutions

New Berlin Grading tested out a lot of software tools over the years. When it came to managing equipment and employees, they found that most software was not designed for heavy civil companies like theirs.

We tried different tracking style systems. Nothing was giving me everything I wanted. It was small bits of information here, small bits there. It wasn't everything we wanted to get. Either we had a maintenance program or we had a scheduling program. There was never a combination between the two. - Bob Baier, Shop Superintendent

After an in-depth demo, the team was intrigued. IVO Systems seemed to be the solution the had been looking for for years. But would it be able to deliver on the promise of connecting the whole company in one platform? It was time to find out.

Implementing IVO Systems

In implementing IVO's operations platform, New Berlin aimed to reduce time spent on tedious tasks like individual crew scheduling and replace manual processes with automated data tracking. Getting a large team to adopt a new software tool is no small feat, and they were prepared for pushback, especially from the more experienced foremen and operators who had been doing it “the old way” for a long time.

Luckily, they didn’t have to worry. Within a month, the initial frustrations and questions faded away. IVO was easy to use, so even the less tech savvy employees learned quickly.

All the operators and laborers actually like it more, just because it does have all the information–they know what piece of equipment's running, where the job is at, who the site superintendent is, who they're going to be working with. - Ben Sell, General Superintendent

With TrackVO and MaintainVO in place, the shop team noticed a big change in the day-to-day experience of fleet management. The old week-long process of repair requests turned into real-time notifications, sent directly to his email. The whole team was bought in to the

Prior to IVO systems, the wall behind me had a giant board that was on there. I would literally have over a hundred pieces of equipment on a giant dry erase board back here, which I was able to take down about three weeks ago finally. -Bob Baier, Shop Superintendent

Results and Benefits

After implementing IVO Systems, New Berlin saw these improvements:
- Increased efficiency in scheduling, dispatching, and repairs
- Prevented equipment downtime by catching issues early
- Eliminated whiteboard tracking of over 100 equipment units
- Integrated data between shop and field teams
- Adapted software to New Berlin's specific business needs
- Intuitive system that was easy for everyone to use

Everybody's in the same system. That's the biggest part, so we can follow through from shop to field as to what's happening. You have communication there. You know what's going on. -Bob Baier, Shop Superintendant

Conclusion

With IVO Systems in place, the New Berlin Grading team has all of the tools for operations and fleet management.

I think it's definitely simple to use. Once you get your main platform, it's the same across everything. It's very easily user friendly in order to be able to understand it, go through. And I have to admit that Eric and Bob have helped us out tremendously. Any questions that we have, we're able to call you guys up and say, hey. What do we need to do? - Ben Sell, General Superintendent

For construction firms struggling with fragmented systems, IVO Systems presents an intuitive yet powerful platform to connect, automate, and optimize operations. We are proud to partner with New Berlin Grading, and looks forward to supporting them as they grow and bring quality heavy civil construction services to Wisconsin and the surrounding areas.
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