brandwerk consulting group Success Story| projectfacts

brandwerk consulting group
Success Story

The fire protection specialists from Essen

The brandwerk consulting group combines the know-how of over 25 years of experience and almost 50 fire protection experts under one roof. Whether new build or refurbishment, brandwerk supports clients, architects and general planners throughout all construction phases.

To this end, the Essen-based company draws up and checks fire protection concepts. These are prescribed by the building regulations whenever a new building is erected or extensive changes are to be made to an existing building. A number of issues have to be taken into account: Escape routes, fire alarm systems and much more.

Maximilian Privik, Managing Director of brandwerk traffic GmbH

The projects at brandwerk are wide-ranging: the “brandwerk solution” branch takes care of customers in building construction, such as residential buildings, shopping centers or listed buildings. Transportation companies, especially in the area of underground structures (subways), are looked after by “brandwerk traffic”, as the requirements there are sometimes completely different, explains Maximilian Privik, Managing Director of the traffic division.

The company is also proud of its in-house qualities in the area of simulation. Every building law requirement can also be solved structurally – if in doubt, the wall just has to be thick enough. In many cases, however, there are more innovative and well thought-out solutions that offer the same level of safety. Such verifications are carried out using engineering methods in the form of fire and evacuation simulations, explains Privik. Put simply, the real situation is mapped within a virtual space and a damaging event is simulated.

“We play Minecraft for a living.”

The new solution for projects

Privik has been working for brandwerk for five years. He originally came to the company through a part-time job. Instead of giving courses at the gym, he wanted to do something more related to his studies and quickly became interested in fire protection topics. His colleagues learned to appreciate Privik for his IT expertise early on. This is how he got the job as a system administrator and supported the introduction of the projectfacts software.

We had already seen how processes don’t work: Invoicing with Word and saving emails manually in project folders. This is what everyday life was like before projectfacts. With the new software, they wanted to organize their work using a proper project structure. Mails, CRM contacts, projects

and finances should thus be bundled in one place.

Due to the project-based teamwork, the idea of being able to access all important data from the project was always at the forefront. This was very easy to achieve with “pro’facts”, as Privik likes to call the software.

There was potential for improvement mainly in the processes. So Privik helped to give employees tips on how they could do their work faster and easier with projectfacts. Especially at the beginning, many colleagues used workarounds that could be avoided with the right settings. This saved a lot of time and effort.

All project costs at a glance

Employees use projectfacts to create new contacts in the CRM module, write quotations and approve them. However, the pivotal point is the project. In it, brandwerk compares planned and incurred labor costs.

“We mainly work with the budget column.”

Projects at brandwerk often take a very long time, sometimes even over a decade. This results in huge amounts of data and countless emails. “As of today, there are 1,500 emails,” reports Privik of a major project in Munich, “which has been running for five years and will run for another ten.” To make matters worse, in over 50 percent of cases, work is already done before the contract is awarded. Making advance payments is unavoidable in the construction industry.

“Otherwise the press will say: Delayed because of fire protection.”

This is why it is particularly important for brandwerk to compare the target and actual budgets – especially at the level of individual work packages. The customer often does not understand if you make additional demands early on in the project as long as the overall budget has not been used up, explains Privik.

In order to recognize in good time whether a project is currently in the black or not, brandwerk uses the budget overview in projectfacts. Labor and material costs are collected there and compared with the respective target value. If the costs are within the planned framework, everything is in the green. If not, it is important to inform the customer in good time.

Advantages and recommendations

What Privik particularly appreciates about working with 5 POINT AG is that the software is constantly being developed further. They also have the opportunity to influence the development and adapt projectfacts even better to their own needs. It is also important that support is available at all times.

Privik recommends projectfacts above all to companies that work on a project basis. It gives them access to everything they need. Especially with intensive mail traffic, it is very practical that the messages in the form of tickets are directly linked to the associated project and are arranged as a conversation history.

The idea of an “open office” can also be implemented wonderfully with the software. Customers can be helped even if they have previously been in contact with another employee because emails do not end up in personal mailboxes but can be accessed centrally via the ticket system.

Privik also sees a major advantage in integrated billing. At brandwerk, the benefits of automated invoicing processes are limited, partly because large customers often dictate the type of invoicing. But for many small and medium-sized companies, project billing is an excellent solution.

“I would recommend
projectfacts to anyone who sees projects as the focal point.”

– Maximilian Privik, Managing Director of brandwerk traffic GmbH –