Increase productivity on renewable energy construction sites
With climate change rising, consumers and companies are initiating the transition to renewable energy solutions. Many factors have made this market grow like never before, making it increasingly difficult for companies to effectively meet the demand for their services.
This sector is growing along with the number and size of projects, which forces companies to digitalize their business processes. We decided to focus on the most complex and labour-intensive process, namely, the construction of wind turbines.
The large number of subcontractors and the scale of construction sites results in numerous activities happening in parallel in a very fast pace environment. It makes it easy to loose track of hours spent on a specific task by a specific subcontractor and ends up in unnecessary extra cost, rather than analyzing whether subcontractors are spending their time productively
Solution and Product Description
Communication, planning, and data quality are key to good performance during any construction. On a daily basis, subcontractors are required to report on all the work done and the time spent on it. They are paid based on this information. However, for various reasons, the information in these reports must be reviewed beforehand, as they are often inaccurate. If there is a discrepancy, the report gets rejected.
Currently, most companies operate like a chain: Subcontractors send their reports and invoices to the construction site manager, who then forwards the data to the project manager to get approved and invoices paid out. New orders follow the same system. This technique is outdated and time-consuming, and data is constantly accumulated and lost.
Our product eases the communication between project owners, main contractors and subcontractors by centralising, processing and unifying paperwork to one database. Collaborators involved gather direct insight on running processes, work history, live build progress, equipment in use and open issues. Accessible anywhere at all times, achieving efficient, seamless communication.
While conducting primary user research, we got to know people working in renewable energy solution development and construction.
By expanding our network, we built a strong cooperation with a regional manager of a renewable energy construction company. This allows us to communicate with groups of potential users and gather high-quality user data.
We discussed our project with construction project managers, green-tech companies, and process-automation startups and built an MVP. As software engineers, we are able to develop a big part of our technical solution ourselves.
It's not simply a reporting tool; it will help evaluate progress, identify performance, planning and quality issues, provide project statistics, and apply learnings to future construction projects.
Market Size and Potential
The EU recently announced to invest 300bn Euros in the green
energy market.
With the current energy crisis becoming a severe financial issue, the transition to renewable energy is more in demand than ever before.
Our product offers efficiency and productivity improvements for the construction of renewable energy sources and saves budget money to develop further solutions.
Team
Maksym Parfeniuk
22y.o. Bachelor of Applied Mathematics and Software Engineering Student at CODE University of Applied Sciences.
Ukrainian
Main responsibilities:
- Web Development
- Customer Research
- Market Research
- Partner earch and Communications
Maximilian Arnold
19 y.o. Prospective Bachelor of Software Engineering at CODE University of Applied Sciences.
German
Main responsibilities:
- Database Development
- Task Managment
- Marketing
- Communications
Motivation
For us, this project is the first step toward learning about driving innovations in the renewable energy market. Succeeding with this project eases other companies the integration of new solutions to create sustainable energy.
Working with creative people with common interests and the shared goal of developing solutions with lasting impact on society and thus shaping our future are excellent sources of motivation.
We like Berlin as a very cosmopolitan city and home to many creative minds from all over the world, setting the perfect fundament for starting a business together and acquiring new skills.