Roricks accounting staff with Controller Donna Maukonen in center.

Roricks, Inc., is one of the premier remodeling and restoration contractors in the Akron and Canton Northeast Ohio region. The company’s emphasis on quality and customer service has paid off. From its beginning in 1975, Roricks has grown to nearly 50 fulltime employees completing 1,000 projects a year.

With as many as 100 jobs in progress at any time, shortcomings in the company’s two-decade old project management system were becoming increasingly evident.

Old system not integrated or reliable

“The system was antiquated,” Controller Donna Maukonen says. “Often, it was difficult to tell how profitable jobs were. Invoices and proposals were completed outside the system, which left room for error and created more work."

"And because we made alterations to how we used the system, there were a variety of processes resulting in inconsistencies.”
As a result, managers didn’t feel ‘good’ about the numbers that came out of the system, she explained.

Even so, Maukonen needed to be persistent to persuade company owner Rick Rorick and other top managers to invest in a new project management system. After all, the company was doing fine.

Rorick is an in-the-field manager whose desk is computer-free. Yet he’s also committed to seeking improvements in all areas of the company. Based on his senior management team’s strong conviction and recommendation, the company proceeded with investing in a new project management system.

The choice? The GrandView Project Management and Team Collaboration system from GrandView Business Solutions.

Measuring performance to enable improvement

“Our goal is to measure performance so we can see strengths and weaknesses,” Maukonen explains. “We want individuals to better see their own trends and we want to more quickly and easily be able to identify problems so that we can react and respond.”

An example is monitoring sales performance. A salesperson that is turning all of his or her proposals into contracts can investigate adjusting their pricing strategy. A salesperson who continues to bid projects yet isn’t successful with turning them into jobs is alerted to look into the causes.

“We’ve always managed jobs. Now we manage people and production.”

One feature Roricks finds useful is the ability to attach information to a job file. This can include before and after photos, specifications, blue prints, colors and types of materials used.

“Customers call all the time and want to know what color we painted their stucco five years ago,” she says. “Previously, we wouldn’t have this information. Now we do.”

Web access convenient for job managers rarely in the office

Project managers, who often work seven days a week during the summer or when deadlines approach, like being able to get documents, data and answers from their home computers at night. It is convenient for them.

GrandView also helps the management team see trends when it gets together every week to review jobs, bids and results. Still, Maukonen knows they are just getting started.

“The company’s been around a long time,” she says. “We’re big and we are good. We have really high quality. Everything we do stands out. We attract quality craftsmen and do the little things other companies don’t. We offer benefits and pay our workers weekly. We’re also a more enjoyable and fun place to work. We get good people and they stay with us.”

But she is quick to point out that Roricks management team never lets success go to their heads. “We all know it’s a tough industry. There can be long dry spells for companies and individuals. And no matter what we’ve done so far, there is more we can do.”

That’s why, after some initial hesitation, Maukonen received the go-ahead for GrandView: it fits the company culture.

‘The GrandView system really helps someone looking for data to improve their business. Now it is all in one place and at our fingertips. GrandView allows us to see the bigger picture, to understand where the company is going so we can work smarter.”

GrandView Business Solutions

For more information on GrandView, call Tom Dormo at 330-995-8130 or visit grandviewbusinesssolutions.com on the web.