Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Business

Graceful Management System: The pièce de résistance in a much needed construction revolution

GMS leverages artificial intelligence to optimize project operations, create comprehensive and accurate estimates, and enhance overall efficiency by addressing the root causes of substantial annual losses in construction.

Photo courtesy of Graceful Management System
Photo courtesy of Graceful Management System

Opinions expressed by Digital Journal contributors are their own.

The construction industry has the second most complaints of any industry for the past three years. When you think about the sheer number of moving interdependent variables in each project, it’s easy to understand why contractors struggle to keep up. The construction industry also hasn’t adapted and modernized, which leads to serious losses, $177 billion annually, to be precise. With those kinds of losses, a revolution is in order. 

Inefficiencies in project management, inaccurate pricing estimates and scheduling challenges have unnecessarily contributed to the losses. Traditional approaches to estimating the costs of projects, like outdated and limited historical data, as well as manual processes, like the “binder” of prior projects as the only source of data, have led to significant inaccuracies in pricing. Throw on archaic and ineffective communication systems along with a lack of technology integrations, and you have a bounty of industry problems that are screaming for dramatic change.

The change, the pièce de résistance, is here. Founder and CEO Tommy Stanek has created Graceful Management System (GMS), a one-of-a-kind, high-level resource management tool specifically created for the needs of contractors and the construction industry. The Graceful Management System leverages artificial intelligence to optimize project operations, create comprehensive and accurate estimates, and enhance overall efficiency by addressing the root causes of substantial annual losses in construction.

The inspiration for Graceful Management System

First and foremost, it must be said that Tommy Stanek is an observer and a problem-solver. While Vice President at A-Team Construction Limited Inc., he paid attention to the constant complaints from customers. He was unable to fix the problems that were often caused by scheduling errors and conflicts, inaccurate pricing and estimates, and a lack of communication. 

He first tried to tackle the scheduling issue. “I’ll just shoot straight with you and tell you that the scheduling challenge was such a behemoth, I didn’t even know at the time that there was a tangible solution for it.” The issue of scheduling is problematic for all contractors and construction.

“Then, I started paying closer attention to how projects were being priced. Essentially, what would happen is the salesman would run to the owner and tell them what type of project they had. Then, the owner had this big binder, which was a print-off of the profit and loss from all the projects he had ever completed. And the guy would flip through this binder, and he would try and find projects that matched the current project. And he’d look at maybe one, no more than three projects to say, ‘Here’s how you’re going to price it.'” 

Alarm bells went off, and Stanek thought to himself, first of all, there is only one person in the company who can give an estimate: the owner. What happens if he is gone? And two, the owner is basically guessing at the pricing. “I thought, there has got to be a technology out there that can essentially do what he’s doing.” 

Stanek looked and looked for it. He had no intention of creating his own, but after demoing as many contractor estimation softwares as he could, not one of them took current historical data and created an estimate. He knew what they needed, but this was 2017, “before AI and ChatGPT, so his vision for what was needed was prophetic and not available.

What do you do when there isn’t a solution? Stanek builds his own

Stanek created it himself. “I wrote all my processes and procedures so that when accounting was done, they had to take certain data points and put them into what I will call our CRM. I had built a CRM using Google Sheets, which was far more sophisticated than you could imagine. You put in a number, and it would automatically send emails to the owner to tell them projects were completed, how much they were off, and it calculated amazing stuff.” 

“And I did everything with drop-down boxes… I got digestible data that I could then write formulas for that could mine that data and then group it specifically to the criteria that I wanted to group it to. So, exactly what was happening manually, I was automating.” 

Stanek continued to work on the system and eventually created a product that utilizes historical information on the prices of various projects and materials; it also factors in changes in labor costs, increases and changes in materials, and even factors in location. “Essentially, I was able to give our sales team access to that whole bidding binder, where they could tangibly use it without having to look through everything.”

That is pretty impressive for a “non-coder.” “I’ve never coded anything. I didn’t know how to write a single formula in Excel, so I just started learning everything, and I was like, holy cow, you can do all of this stuff. It was freaking awesome! It was so much fun.”

That initial success inspired him to take on scheduling as well. “Because of the instant changes they are forced to make, schedulers don’t have the luxury of considering the chain reaction they are setting off and how those changes will impact other unrelated projects taking place simultaneously or scheduled next. They are putting out one fire without recognizing the multiple fires they’re igniting. But you can’t blame them, it’s not mathematically possible for a human to consider all the variables and potential outcomes with the quick turnaround contractors need.” With most projects, the schedule is just a guess and it doesn’t factor in supply chain issues, sick employees, a delay from another project, etcetera. 

“And I just started visualizing it almost instantaneously. I was like, all right, the first thing we have to do is we just have to create a database of everybody we have working for us. Next, we have to identify everyone we have working for us, what the costs are, and whether it’s specific to what they are doing. So, if they’re driving, it’s a different cost. If they’re working, it’s a different cost. Then, we have to identify what it is that they can do. Can they do siding? Can they do roofing? Can they do tile work? You list all of those trades out, which isn’t complicated stuff. And now not only do you identify if they can do it, but now you rate them on their quality of work and efficiency.”

He makes it sound easy, right? But if it were easy, the 3.7 million construction companies in the U.S. would be able to handle unhappy customers, imprecise timelines, and accurate estimates. Fortunately, the Graceful Management System creates the schedule and deadlines with serious data, not guesswork. Stanek explains, “With my tool, owners can promise customers that their project will stay on schedule because they anticipated all the problems before they issued the original estimate.” 

Stanek’s Graceful Management System also calculates real-time margins. “It is another thing that our competitors don’t do. Our product is constantly tracking your historical sales, current sales, historical overhead, current overhead. And it’s actually creating margins for you on top of your cost of goods.”

If you aren’t already convinced construction needs Graceful Management Systems

Stanek explains more benefits, “With GMS, you should be able to get estimates within 95% accuracy. (Globally, construction lost $1.8 Billion due to inaccurate data) You should be able to shave 20% of the labor costs off of every job. You will be able to provide real-time, honest communications through our Chat GPT integration. Customers no longer have to call the construction owner and ask him why somebody didn’t show up. You’ll just be able to ask Chat GPT, and it won’t lie. It’ll look at why somebody didn’t show up and just flat-out tell you. It will, with predictive modeling, be able to take into consideration things people don’t even think are possible. For example, the human component.” 

With continuous data, GMS will be able to start providing schedules that are not just the amount of time it takes to complete the work, but factor in exactly how much time the team won’t be there as a result of the human factor or variables, like illnesses, injuries, childcare issues that are outside of one’s control, but GMS has a recorded history of it to use as data points. 

Stanek’s GMS can even predict whether a project is likely to be Pandora’s Box or a treasure void with few surprises. “Many people tell me, you never know anything until you tear open the wall. You’re 100% correct. But if I have thousands of completed projects torn open with that same kind of wall in a house that’s the same age in that same neighborhood, in the same state, I can very accurately tell you what’s behind that wall. Not only can I tell you what’s behind that wall, I can also tell you the costs associated with remedying what’s behind that wall. And even if I can’t be 100% accurate, I can at least tell you that there is a 75% likelihood that when I tear open the wall, these are the costs you’ll have to expect.” You have to admit, that is pretty cool. 

The construction industry, drowning in outdated scheduling practices, archaic communications systems and inaccurate manual estimations, is ripe for a revolution; Tommy Stanek’s Graceful Management System is the pièce de résistance to do it. 

To sign up for the GMS beta, click here.

Avatar photo
Written By

Jon Stojan is a professional writer based in Wisconsin. He guides editorial teams consisting of writers across the US to help them become more skilled and diverse writers. In his free time he enjoys spending time with his wife and children.

You may also like:

Life

Australian firefighter Ben Wallace chatted about helping multiple charities with the 2025 Australian Firefighters Calendar.

Entertainment

Veteran actress Beth Broderick chatted about her new Hallmark movie "Holiday Mismatch."

Entertainment

Actors Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, and Maria Bakalova star in "The Apprentice," which was released in theaters on October 11th.

Business

“Using Emerging Tools to enhance internal AI capabilities based on an emerging AI/ML company’s core technology.