Construction (B-BBEE level 3 status)
Tri-Star is a construction company that specializes in commercial, retail, industrial and multi-unit housing developments, refurbishments and extensions. The business started in 1979 as a painting and renovating business, but less than 20 years later grew to provide expertise in construction. As the business grew, Tri-Star recognised a need to launch Tri-Star Plant and Equipment.
Tri-Star has completed over 370 construction projects and their teams are currently working on projects from R40 million to as large as a R300 million project developing luxury apartments for a client near East Gate; development of RDP houses and Walk ups for ValueMax in Dainfern; and the glamourous Infinité apartments in Bedfordview.
Tri-Star wanted to expand their business. In the construction industry, as much as 85% of costs are driven by sub-contractor fees, labour and materials. Hence real-time cost management is essential to enable business growth and scaling.
They had also been experiencing challenges in maintaining effective real time communication with their multiple sites which in turn was impacting their real time reporting and the accuracy of those reports. As with many construction professionals, reports are absolutely time critical and a prolonged process to generate them often resulted in the report being out of date (or perhaps too late) once received to be able to take any effective preventative rather than remedial action.
BuildSmart and Candy have been our cost accounting and estimating software solution for more than 10 years. It forms an integral part of the effective management of our company and with accurate cost accounting and management against pre-determined allowable being the core of our industry, we simply can’t operate efficiently without this system. RIB CCS is a necessity, not a luxury.
Pieter Swanepoel, Financial Director
Tri-Star Construction Pty Ltd
RIB CCS was selected as the preferred partner for its expertise in the construction industry as well as its proven capability to integrate software solutions seamlessly to maintain the integrity of existing projects. Tri-Star management knew that RIB CCS would put the company’s business needs first, then identify the technology solution to best fit that need.
RIB CCS analysed the business need then implemented a real-time operational and cost management solution. RIB CCS consultants integrated both Candy and BuildSmart to streamline business processes and enable real-time management of projects with seamless cost versus allowable, and financial reporting.
Installing RIB CCS’s Complete Solution meant that Tri-Star has a software solution that seamlessly integrates the cost management across all areas of the business. As cost control is paramount, this has had a significant impact on the profitability of Tri-Star’s business. The company:
Overall, Tri-Star Construction Pty Ltd recognise that this level of insight is the only way a business in the construction industry can remain sustainable. This kind of control means the business can be better managed, with better control, operate more efficiently with reduced risk, resulting in increased profitability.