Win a Bid and Make Money in Tough Times

> Are you looking at a project with a major element of concrete construction? Are there too many bidders for projects today? Yes, way too many.

Differentiating a Bid With Variable Costs
When you are looking at a project, you ask yourself, how can we differentiate ourselves from our competitors? The first and the poorest answer is with a mistake making it the lowest bid. Think about it, there are other ways. Contractors bidding a project should all have about the same cost for materials required. Well defined sub contracts should also come through at about the same cost to general contractors. This in general terms leaves “labor costs” and “ability to manage” as the major variable cost.

What is the best way to make money in tough times? It is our opinion we must “think outside the box” and cut labor costs with innovative labor-saving solutions and good management.

Labor Savings
How can and how does EFCO fit into this picture? EFCO is not a material supplier and not even just an equipment supplier. Our specialty at EFCO, we supply engineered labor savings innovative products and business processes for concrete construction.

It is a “no-brainer” to think that forming equipment and concrete support equipment suppliers packages can be evaluated with a direct dollar-for-dollar comparison, they can not. With every dollar of forming equipment cost, many, many dollars will be made or lost with the direct labor and project management cost. Of course, with every dollar of labor come additional substantial labor overhead costs.

When we at EFCO talk about concrete cost business processes, we are referring to a “broad band” of processes. I tell our people at EFCO, “The things we focus on we are successful at, and those things we ignore we fail at.” Let’s take a real good look at EFCO.

The Savings Start When the Equipment Arrives
When a truckload of EFCO forming and shoring equipment arrives at a project, this is only the start. This is where EFCO really shines and differentiates itself from its competitors. It is our job to deliver “knock-your-socks-off” assembly, cycling, and safety field crew instructions. EFCO has a staff of dedicated, trained, and experienced field supervisors. In addition, we have new animated assembly, cycling, and safety videos for our primary product lines. These are for the original and only PLATE GIRDER® forming system, the REDI-RADIUS® system for radius walls, and the EFCO E-Z DECK® system. Oh yes, we have more and more are on the way.

We never want to forget what our company’s founder, W. A. Jennings, said many years ago; “It’s not the initial cost of forming equipment that counts, but the initial cost plus the cost of using.”

Today, we have restated this as our core ideology, “EFCO provides the best value and lowest in-place concrete cost.” This is demonstrated in many ways today. Place your bet with the industry leader and EFCO’s professional engineers, experienced field supervisors, a fiscally conservative and financially stable company with 75 years in the business.

by Al Jennings, Chairman & CEO