Much has been written about the creative and innovative talent of today’s CIOs. For some, their in-house work can turn into a commercialized application for sale to others. So it is with BuilderLink™; the exception here is that the driving force behind this launch was a seasoned lumberyard manager with a penchant for computer systems and software.
What began years ago as an in-house ‘green screen’ software application called M2L – short for “Modem to Load ‘em” – has evolved into a more robust, browser-based commercial application called BuilderLink™. Having been familiar with the initial launch of its predecessor, M2L, I welcomed the invitation to experience a new-user training session, and the offer to feature a product review here in the blog.
Some History
M2L offered a simple, character-based means for building contractors, architects, and other commercial builders to access the inventory at a local wholesale lumber and building materials dealer, Truitt & White Lumber Company (Berkeley, CA). Early PC and Mac users could use their modem to login to the Truitt & White Lumber database and perform a lookup of items and pricing. They could even build an order, and in most cases, fax it in for shipment or pickup, thus bypassing the traditional phone inquiries, or visits.
With the early success of M2L, Mark Pearsall, General Manager of Truitt & White Lumber, recognized that the underlying architecture of their custom in-house systems could help other wholesale building materials dealers. The sale and support of these systems and software would necessitate a spin-off company. Soon thereafter, Softwood, Inc. enters the picture with Mark assuming a dual-role with Truitt & White and Softwood, Inc.
"Having been a lumber dealer for decades, I kept my ears and eyes open to changes that have been happening in our industry," says Pearsall, a lumberyard manager for twenty years "The new generation of builders and contractors want immediate, accurate information at their fingertips whether they’re on the job site or at home in their living room.” With the growing interest in Internet applications, Softwood embarked on a migration path to take M2L into a browser-based application and additional functionality. Renamed BuilderLink™, the new graphical interface simplified use and added an opportunity to incorporate pictures and graphics into the otherwise plain-vanilla text, previously available in M2L.
Fast Forward to Today
In addition to the new graphical interface and platform independent nature of BuilderLink™, additional features and functionality have been incorporated from the user community wish list. Contractors can now build an “assembly”, or an “estimate”, as well as export their work into other business software applications like Sage Master Builder. The previous inventory lookup mnemonics have been replaced with a combination pull-down and free-form text search box. Many of the products incorporate additional material detail, pictures and graphics, with some incorporating hyperlinks to the manufacturer’s Web site.
Building an assembly in BuilderLink™ is a simple, yet powerful feature of the software application. Here a builder or architect can assemble common materials into a named “Assembly” and save it for later use. It can be modified over time, or adjusted for individual jobs or estimates. A good example of this would be a common deck project on a home. Various assemblies would make up the average job and individual projects could be adjusted accordingly.
Estimates take on a similar profile. Inventory lookups and material requirements on a project-by-project basis can be saved as an “Estimate”. This can be used by the contractor for bidding on jobs, or as part of an existing project. The contractor can utilize the assembly feature in BuilderLink™ to speed the estimate process or ensure consistency across various jobs or projects.
"It's given us an advantage with our pro-builder account clients," says Judi Ettinger, the Marketing Director for Truitt & White. "Contractors are more likely to put a package together on-site and then hand the entire estimate from BuilderLink to our lumber yard. Since it tracks discounts by accounts, and also has products descriptions and diagrams, their need to interact with the salesperson for orders has significantly diminished.”
BuilderLink™ is a subscriber only system, and billed as an annual membership fee by the company who hosts the application, e.g., Truitt & White. For the average building contractor, the savings in man-hours and easy access to information and inventory quickly offsets the fee; there are additional untold savings and benefits in other areas of the user’s (contractors) operation.
From the User Perspective
In talking to users of BuilderLink™, the obvious benefit is the ability to access inventory and place orders outside the normal business hours of the wholesale building materials dealer. That existed in the older M2L application as well. So, what sets BuilderLink™ apart?
Howard Robbins, of Howard Robbins Construction Company (Alamo, CA) - a residential remodeling company for over 30 years - finds the new graphical interface a plus over his prior use of M2L. The additional material pictures or graphics are also an advantage, especially when comparing items, as part of the overall search results. His primary use of BuilderLink™ is checking prices, and using the assembly feature to update his own database in Sage Master Builder. However, Howard would like to see a more integrated approach between Sage Master Builder and BuilderLink™ vs. the current export file (Microsoft Excel). The other improvement Howard would like to see is in the search results. With the tens of thousands of items in the database, it can take time to hit on just the right one for the job.
Seth Melchert of Master Builders (Oakland, CA) is also a long time user of M2L and now, BuilderLink™. As a General Contractor since 1985, he likes the idea that he can take control of his estimates and orders and not have to depend solely on “counter staff” for help. This frees up time for both sides and makes the chance encounters at Truitt & White more productive. Seth was quick to offer praise to Truitt & White for not only the progressive thought around BuilderLink™, but also their support over the years of offering conference room facilities for various builder (community) groups like “Build It Green”.
Although Seth finds BuilderLink™ helpful, he would in some ways like to return to the speedier mnemonics inventory lookups in the older M2L. As a seasoned user, once he learned the naming conventions of most products, he could bypass the search routine and find many on his own. But, he does appreciate the product graphics; his only complaint there is that he would like to see more of them across more items. Whereas Howard appreciates the export of data, Seth would like to see the import of data with Excel spreadsheets that serve as estimates. This would eliminate the present duplicate entry of his work and offer a significant timesaving.
Both Howard and Seth would like to see other vendors outside of the wholesale building materials dealer adopt BuilderLink™. Howard pointed to the plumbing supply industry as one such vendor. Whether this becomes an “ Internet portal”, or a common application across many material vendors, would be worthy of debate – weigh-in with your suggestions, recommendations, or advice in the Comments section, here in the blog.
Some Observations from My Perspective
BuilderLink™ supports Internet Explorer and Firefox, as well as Safari for the Mac. Even though it wasn’t shown as a supported browser, we found no issues testing it with the Windows version of Safari. And, the temptation was too great not to consider this for wireless and cellular applications.
We tried it out on the Apple iPhone without any problem. However, we didn’t make any effort to put it through its paces, and the screen is mighty small for the BuilderLink™ profile – I think the folks at Softwood should consider getting their hands on the iPhone SDK. But, it would make for a handy, quick lookup or order status. Taking this notion one step further, with the advent of wireless cards for cellular networks, there is no reason you couldn’t run BuilderLink™ on your laptop from the seat of your pickup. Although much slower, maybe even a Bluetooth-ready Mac or Windows laptop would be an option.
Outside of Internet access and compatibility, some changes and improvements I would see in the near future are:
- Type-ahead search whereby the first letter advances you to the next item in the category search. Today you have to scroll manually through all the categories.
- A faster result in search for products and alternative misses. Since the system is searching so many items and appears to be index-dependent on an exact match, it would be better to have it return a false hit sooner, or a “too many products” error. This may answer some of the needs for Seth’s preference to the older M2L search.
- When it does find a match, it would be good to see a list of alternative products, or ones that fall into the category of “those who liked this item, also liked this one.”
- It appears that estimates in BuilderLink™ are not updated by a change in the assembly. So, you need to manually review the estimates in order to be sure changes from an assembly are reflected in your current estimates. This could be a more seamless process with the user making the determination of what to update and which ones to let stand “as is”.
- During the training session, users asked for the ability to contribute to an FAQ section. And they suggested adding installation time (labor) estimates to various products as a helpful utility for bidding on jobs or preparing estimates much like an auto mechanic does before a repair.
As BuilderLink™ matures and is installed in other areas and businesses, I expect many changes will be forthcoming. They already enjoy a robust and loyal following of users, so I don’t expect it to be very long before we hear more from them in the future. BuilderLink™ fulfills the niche where others have failed in the past; the key to their success rests with their close ties to their end-users, and firsthand knowledge of the building industry. This isn’t a focus group-driven project. BuilderLink™ users are an active and vocal group of businesspeople that seek a better way to run their business and serve their customers. This loyalty and high user satisfaction should bode well for BuilderLink™ and Softwood’s continued success in the future.
For more information on BuilderLink ™ or a demonstration, visit https://www.yourbuilderlink.com or contact Drummond Evans at 541-762-1100 x7008 or drum@YourBuilderLink.com.
Corporate Headquarters
Softwood, Inc.
1831 2nd Street
Berkeley, CA 94710-1902
Recent Comments