Once a customer, Dedicated Services General Manager, John Rowe knows all there is to know about the ins and outs of residential construction – and how Dedicated Services can provide support to businesses with high workload and those looking to expand.
We spoke to him to find out how his 700-strong team are helping homebuilders around the globe deliver quality projects of all shapes and sizes…
I first encountered MiTek when I was working with a structural timber company in Australia more than 12 years ago and was introduced to their services by a frame and truss company. Today, I’m based in Ho Chi Minh City, where I oversee the work delivered for the Residential Homes Builder (RHB) sector around the globe.
Currently our biggest market is in Australia, where we have a diverse spread of customers including the country’s largest house builders. We are also working with customers in the US, New Zealand, France, Austria, and now the UK, so Europe is beginning to take off, too.
Many of our homebuilder clients come to us following recommendations from MiTek frame and truss customers, who are encouraging them to talk to Dedicated Services about how we can help them. Once housebuilders start working with us they find there is potential to do more, utilising the skills of our teams to streamline their design, estimating, marketing and administration processes.
We have an awesome and comprehensive team of people, including graduates from architecture and engineering disciplines, who bring enormous energy and enthusiasm into the mix.
What sort of work does this involve?
It’s a real mix of tasks and software (we use 160 different types of software across the company) from client to client. For some it could be modelling a new master design, or lot specific construction drawings or converting a whole library of master designs from 2D to 3D.
Conversions are a very well used service in Australia, and probably makes up the bulk of drafting services here. We adapt master designs to take into account a client’s individual project requirements. We also complete custom drawing for smaller customers. For example, we’ve had pencil sketches turned into 3D models and then into walkthrough videos – it’s amazing what they can create.
A full package of skills.
It’s important that our customers understand that we’re not just about Drafting. We can provide a whole suite of services for a homebuilder.
By that, I mean we are doing full architecture drawing for construction purposes. We’re producing a full estimate on all the quantities for purchasing for construction. We’re doing 3D renders for marketing – whether that’s facade renders or a full video walkthrough of the house or development project.
Another consideration at play is how we help the major housebuilders who often build the same models of property over and over again. We take on all that back office, repetitious work which takes pressure off team resources, and delivers cost efficiencies.
A dedicated service in every sense!
Clients who use our services, really like how it works for them, they know they can trust us to get on and turn things around efficiently and accurately. Our team members very quickly become one of the customers team, as remote working has become a part of everyday business life.
What’s, the typical project from a house builder?
It varies. For some of the major builders we’ll ‘touch’ their drawings three or four times, we’ll do the preliminary sketch, then they’ll do the preliminary permitting. Once a contract is signed the customer will choose their colours and products and at each of these stages we’re updating the drawings and quantities.
The advantages
We always ask our customers: Where is your bottleneck? Where is your need? Where are you losing time? We work backwards from here identifying what needs to be done to address the problem. And as there are no initial costs to trial the service, new clients very quickly turn into long-term repeat customers. We welcome visitors to our unique facilities in Vietnam, and highly recommend a visit, I did so as a client 12 years ago and it was a game changer.
Our team is ready to welcome you to the MiTek Services family.
