Maxwell Systems’ StreetSmarts is a custom enterprise package for heavy, highway and utility contractors. The software includes typical business functions such as accounting, payroll and construction job costing as well as specialized modules for the heavy and highway sector.

From the equipment perspective, StreetSmarts’ Equipment Management module tracks preventive maintenance, service cycles, warranties and oil samples. It also figures prominently in tracking what equipment is used on each job and in tracking idle time, downtime, and productive time so managers can see how well, and how often, a piece of equipment is being used. Other tools help measure return on investment while also empowering managers to ensure equipment is being charged out accurately and completely.

Being able to predict the amount of use before a piece of equipment breaks down can help contractors minimize unplanned repairs. David Bennett, product manager at Maxwell Systems said the predictive analysis capabilities built into Equipment Management make it easy to analyze equipment history with an eye toward discovering optimum times to make repairs so downtime is mitigated.

According to Bennett, for those businesses that have quarry or batch plant operations the group of modules called the Materials Management Suite is of special interest.

“Unlike some packages that may track just your production and your cost of producing materials within job cost, we wrote a completely separate [yet] integrated suite that includes product cost, material billing, and truck management,” he explained. “Truck management accounts for the unique costs and payment of independent haulers.”  The application also accounts for cost-of-goods-sold transactions and inventory adjustments, and generates the plant’s profit and loss without additional data entry. This suite has built-in interfaces for scale and barcode technology, too.

QuestMX: Heavy and highway estimating software

Maxwell Systems also sells a complete takeoff and estimating solution called QuestMX Estimating, which can stand alone or integrate with StreetSmarts or American Contractor, the company’s more generalized business management software. Since heavy/highway, infrastructure and utility contractors work in volumes of things -- earth, stone, gravel, concrete, asphalt -- Maxwell Systems has incorporated into QuestMX Estimating earth measuring tools that speed up cut and fill takeoffs and estimates. Once the estimator traces the site plan with a mouse, and adds the existing grades, the software will redraw the site plan showing the cuts and fills in different colors. It will also produce the quantities and types of materials necessary to fill the specified areas. Then, as the takeoff is underway, quantities are automatically transferred to the estimating process, according to Maxwell Systems.

As heavy equipment is being routinely outfitted with machine control tools that automatically adjust blade and bucket activities to match the job, Maxwell Systems has incorporated machine control interfaces into its QuestMX Earthwork software so when details like finished elevations are worked out, that data can be sent to the machine where it guides the cut and fill activities.

*** Other software overviews in this article include Explorer Software, Spectrum Construction Software and HCSS software. You can also return to our introduction to heavy and highway software.