Whenever the need to repaint buildings arises, house owners or housing society committee members worry about getting the right service provider on board besides the final cost, the day to day supervision, the impact on the daily routine and the timely completion of work. Glasshoppers’ PaintAPP is an interactive mobile app addresses all these issues on a single platform.
Relying on its extensive base of rope access-trained painters, Glasshoppers carry out exterior painting work while adhering to Convenience, Punctuality, Fixed Price, Safety and Transparency. PaintAPP allows you to obtain a quotation, place the order, manage the project, make payments, and maintain all documentation in a completely transparent manner. Throughout the process, the app provides a simple and quick way to reach the PaintAPP team for any requirements and also receive an immediate response.
Requesting a quotation
All it takes is three simple steps: Download the PaintAPP on the mobile phone through Google Play Store, select ‘Request a Quote’, share the details of the building location and the basic requirements of painting.
Being an interactive platform, following the request on the PaintAPP, in about 15 minutes, a draft quotation based on the details entered is sent. If the sender is convinced and expresses interest, the final quote is sent within six hours. This final quote is offered after surveying the site, and taking into account all customer requirements. The APP is equipped with options to review, ask for a re-quote and finalise the same in just four hours.
Revision in requirements can be made through a text message and the APP will provide another final quotation with the revised requirements. These revisions can continue, till all is finalised and the order is placed.
From the time the customer floats an enquiry to the actual receipt of proposal after site survey, it usually takes at least 3-4 days with traditional painting contracts. PaintAPP completes this process on the same day, within four hours.
Placing/deferring the order
PaintAPP contracts are fixed price contracts with respect to costs and processes. The approved contract clearly states what the package includes and how much to pay for it. There are no hidden costs and no mid-project escalations. The total value of the contract is fixed till completion of the contract. PaintAPP ensures no bargains, no change in scope and specifications after commencing the work, thus protecting customer interests. The on-time delivery of the painted building distinguishes it from other solution providers.
The APP also allow to defer the work to a future date through an alert with the revised date to start the work. The work will be initiated accordingly as long as it is within the proposal validity period. If not, a fresh request needs to be sent.
Choose your colour
This crucial step usually involves flipping through physical colour albums, and not being able to distinguish one shade from another. With PaintAPP, the preferred colour can be chosen from the colour pallet available in the APP itself. This cannot be changed once work commences. However, another colour can be chosen within two days of selecting the first colour.
3D views of the process, progress and project updates
PaintAPP sends out project updates on a daily basis along with visual images from the site. This provides complete transparency to the customer, to assess and review the works and request/recommend any course changes.
At the end of each painting process of each elevation of the building, the project manager uploads photographs of the completed work, which you can view on the mobile. The APP provides options to comment on the photograph itself, or interact with the project manager to take corrective action. The latter will initiate corrective action and the updated photograph will be uploaded. Site support will be provided by the project manager and app support will be provided by the PaintAPP team.
Interact with the project manager
The project manager ensures that all commitments are adhered to and the work proceeds smoothly in accordance with PaintAPP’s SOP. For example, PaintAPP customers can enjoy disturbance-free painting, as the painting team never blocks the worksite with scaffolding, which means vehicles can manoeuvre and children can play around the periphery of the building, without restrictions or fear. On completion of each and every painting contract, the team disposes the residue as per Green Building norms.
Bringing additional safety to the workplace, all PaintAPP painters are professionally trained for Rope Access — the safest work-at-heights system, as against the market practice of using country coir ropes. Rope access is a form of work positioning, initially developed from techniques used in climbing and caving, which uses practical rope work to allow workers to access difficult-to-reach locations safely, without the use of scaffolding, cradles or an aerial work platform. This means accidents at the site can be avoided to a great extent, and if by chance something does go wrong, the customer is indemnified from having to pay damages.
Make progressive payments
All work-related documents like the proposal and invoices can be tracked in the APP itself. Payments linked to the process are predefined at the time of placing the order itself. On completion of each process, the invoices will be raised, and payments can be made via the APP itself.
PaintAPP customers can avail of a 100% warranty for the ‘full term and full value’, as against the market norm of diminishing warranty. A diminishing warranty covers only the value of the painting material and not the contract value. There is one more rider to it; the material value keeps diminishing year on year.
If and when there is an issue, a request can be made through the APP, and the team will attend to the problem and solve it.
PaintApp’s customer-centric, transparent service model is sure to attract numerous customers, who, once satisfied with the work delivered, can rate the APP in the Play Store, and recommend it to other future customers.
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Avoiding waste with lean facility management
Practising lean facility management is now considered as an effective way to identify waste and reduce facility management costs. This can be compared to Six Sigma, a lean process improvement system used within manufacturing. Evaluating which forms of waste are more likely to impact an organization is one step closer to proactive facility management. Costs such as wages and inventory can be an immediately tangible form of waste. Inefficient processes or time spent on administrative tasks can also be a form of waste. Lean facility management identifies specific forms of waste that building managers encounter on a day-to-day basis.
Transporting goods and people can produce a lot of waste, especially when you have to transport something unnecessarily. Another waste component is inventory. Waste in inventory is prevalent, particularly in storing parts and documentation. Another form of waste is unnecessary walking between maintenance work and office. With the use of customised software and work plan the movement can be be limited.
In many FM processes, workers often wait for parts, communication , information or equipment. Utilizing facility software, customer- service provider- product provider information channels can be improved.
In facilities, over-production happens when work orders and operations go untracked. This can be improved by tracking all maintenance activities in your facility maintenance software. Another ‘waste’ occurs when information is duplicated.
One of the biggest wastes in facilities is under utilizing the capabilities of workers, Providing adequate training to the new hires can help. or providing inadequate training, especially with new technical hires. A lean facility management practice help create a plan to reduce waste and costs associated with maintenance.
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