What is Assignar?
Assignar is a cloud-based construction operations platform that helps self-perform general and subcontractors improve productivity and operations, such as labor, crew and equipment management, resource-loaded scheduling, field data, timesheets, and more. Assignar’s customers operate in infrastructure, road, rail, civil, utilities and other construction disciplines.
The current industry landscape
Progressing into 2022, the industry landscape is rapidly evolving. The recent passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) represents a tremendous opportunity to modernize the nation’s infrastructure and bring long-outdated systems into the 21st century. This landmark piece of legislation will introduce $550 billion in new spending over the next five years to bring long-overdue updates and expansions to roads, airports, rail, power and water infrastructure, and more.
The industry is also seeing a shift towards the integration of construction technology on jobsites. However, within Assignar's competitive set, many companies only offer single-point solutions that address a few but not all of the common issues construction teams face today. Contractors need an all-in-one platform for operations that can help integrate administrative, scheduling and tracking processes and increase productivity and profitability.
At the core of Assignar is the data and real-time visibility benefits that the tool enables. Unlocking the power of data on jobsites allows for contractors to successfully schedule the right workers to the right projects, track equipment efficiently and make well-informed decisions for future projects based on past performance. Assignar offers an all-in-one platform to manage operations across multiple projects, promoting safety and efficiency.
Despite digitization of the construction industry, cloud-based operations platforms like Assignar will continue to compete against manual processes like spreadsheets and pen and paper. The industry has been slower to adopt technology on jobsites, so it remains a struggle to get self-perform and subcontractors to abandon how they have completed projects in the past.
Establishing the company
Sean McCreanor, CEO and co-founder of Assignar, was on an exhaustive search for a platform to tackle common operational challenges that he saw in his rail subcontracting business. The pain points that McCreanor experienced in the construction industry were problems that he believed could be fixed by consolidating all of the manual processes that contractors spend hours on into one platform.
In 2014, McCreanor teamed up with CTO and co-founder Marko Tomic to create Assignar. Tomic is a customer-focused technologist, developing and architecting world-class web solutions and products in a variety of industries. By integrating these processes into one software, McCreanor and Tomic saw an opportunity for contractors to complete projects on time, remaining compliant with government regulations, all while seamlessly managing the workforce and equipment on multiple jobsites.
The growth and mission of the company
Assignar offers an easy-to-use operations platform for self-perform general and subcontractors on public and private infrastructure projects. The platform streamlines operations and project schedules as well as tracking crews, equipment, and quantities, while improving quality and safety. It measures and monitors productivity and progress with real-time data directly from workers on the project.
2021 was a monumental year for Assignar as the company doubled its headcount and invested in R&D and product development to expand its core platform and continue to meet the needs of the sector. Notably, the company just closed a $16.5 million secondary financing round led by Tiger Global, an investment firm focused on public and private companies in the global internet, software, consumer, and financial technology industries, and SecondQuarter Ventures, the first secondaries fund in Australia & New Zealand to focus exclusively on the venture space.
Assignar will continue to grow because of the understanding that McCreanor and Tomic have of the changing needs of contractors on jobsites, especially since the passage of the IIJA. “Our platform is a critical need for infrastructure and other construction sectors as they require more project visibility and access to operations data to drive better results,” says McCreanor. “We recognize that our customers will serve the demands of the infrastructure investments being planned across the United States, Canada, Australia and other markets. We'll be there to help them identify how to scale.”
The company plans to introduce an expansion in the first half of 2022 with powerful project optimization capabilities, if desired, creating project visibility for owners from data shared by specialty contractors, operators, schedulers and laborers. These developments will be coupled with a recommendation engine that leverages data through machine learning in order to support planning and execution processes.
Customer experience
Assignar is designed to eliminate the frustration that self-perform contractors and subcontractors feel when jobsites are unorganized and unproductive, causing project delays and profit losses.
Thoutt Bros Concrete Contractors commented on the benefits of using Assignar to replace manual processes: “Without using software right now we’d be in trouble. We were reliant on magnetic whiteboards and our operations software has completely replaced that. We can get rid of that now and put up computer screens once we finally get back into the office.” The company continued, “We’re collecting up to 90 digital forms a day and this is just the beginning, I anticipate it getting up to 200-300 forms a day.”
Check them out: https://www.assignar.com/
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