Every building can be designed as a series of lines and arcs. This is the premise behind the name, Linarc, a newly launched construction management solution brought to market by Shanthi Rajan, founder and CEO of the company.
The new solution was developed with a post-covid view of how construction companies want and need to run their projects in the future. The software is built on the cloud, is mobile-first and has collaboration at its heart.
Shanthi Rajan, Linarc CEO & Founder, commented: “I built Linarc to eliminate the inefficiencies that plague the construction industry. Linarc uses technology, integrated connectivity, intelligent data analysis, and real-time updates to give everyone the tools, resources, and information they need to perform at their best. As a result, projects run smoother; progress moves faster, and projects are completed on time and on budget.”
Enterprise Times spoke to Rajan about the launch; the full interview will be published later. The announcement is for the first release of the solution. The company already has a couple of beta customers and is looking to attract more. Funded by Rajan, Linarc has around 28 employees, mostly engineers in India, with a small sales and customer success operation in Southern California.
What problem does it address
Rajan called out inefficiencies in construction. What were those she identified?
“For example, I spoke to one contractor today, and I asked him, ‘how do you know what’s going on in the field?’ They have about $30 million (or projects). The contractor is doing well, and they do have the ability to meet their project deadlines, give or take 10 to 15% of issues.
“But data in the field is a notebook. The foreman or the site superintendent writes in the notebook. When you talk about problems, it’s a very varied set of problems that you have. One is there’s a lack of digitisation. They have notebooks, Excel spreadsheets, and MS Project schedules that they pull up and deliver. Laptop digitalization is still, even in a good size company like this, a prevalent problem.
“The other side of it is wastage and a lack of predictive labour utilisation. That’s another major problem that drives up costs. In any construction project, we know that their main material is ordered over 20% in excess. What do you do with that? There’s not a concrete effort to utilise it. When you think of the cost, the wastage, and sustainability issues that come with that. These are two extreme problems of lack of digitalization. Digitalization leads to that because you don’t know on average, how much material you consume.
“The other is the labour force is. If you don’t have a job today, you can walk into and get a job on a construction site. The barrier to entry is very low. So that causes its own set of problems. While there is one aspect of the industry that is going really far with technology and material that’s not come down to the rest of the industry.
“You will still see subcontractors working on pen and paper and a general contractor who’s using the latest technology. The system is only as good as the last bit of inefficiencies that are there. So there are three or four different main problems that plague this industry.”
What is Linarc?
Linarc has built-in features that provide everything you need to manage construction projects successfully in a single, intuitive, easy-to-use platform.
Linarc consists of project management functionality, including a scheduler, Job site management, project financials and a workflow engine that enables users to automate processes. It also includes operations management with a resource manager, dispatch management and a portfolio manager to enable an organisation to manage multiple projects.
Linarc links managers, crews, materials, equipment and processes on a single platform, mapping their usage against budgets. The collaboration and mobile features enable organisations to work better together regardless of location.
Linarc is an All-in-One project management solution for the construction industry. If Linarc does not include the capability, it integrates into a solution using its open API. It has integrated to other project management, ERP and other solutions.
Rajan explained: “Today, we integrate with Sage 300 CRE. Extending to Sage Intacct (Construction) soon. We will build integrations to common ERPs used by the industry and are working deeper on the pre-construction side, looking at building connected and Autodesk. We look at it as a full end-to-end lifecycle and are slowly working our way through each segment as and when our customers express a need for it.”
At the heart of Linarc is a Work Breakdown Structure and a sophisticated scheduling solution that differentiates it from the competition. The scheduler uses predictive analytics to allocate individual tasks in the WBS hierarchy and eliminate much of the time spent on resource management within contractors. Enterprise Times asked Rajan to expand on this.
“It’s a full-on product. You don’t have to go outside for other resources. For example, you have a team of 100 crew guys, and you’re wondering how to put them on different projects. We have an inbuilt intelligent algorithm that will help you do that. That’s a simple example of how we are a full end-to-end platform. You don’t have to buy us and then buy ten more to make your life work, except for those peripheral things like ERP and stuff you already have.”
Rajan continued: “The other differentiation is, again, when it comes to company personas or user personas, our role-based system lets you define your own rules. We support a lot of personas intrinsically, whether they are owner-developer or subcontractors. All of them coexist on the same platform. It’s not like you upload an RFI as a subcontractor. It goes through your email route. Then the response comes in. It’s a real-time, collaborative, connected and fully integrated platform.”
Benefits of Linarc
In its press release, Linarc called out the benefits it delivers to all stakeholders in a construction firm.
- Project owners have clear insights into work progress and budget expenditures.
- Design teams are connected to project execution for quick reference and problem-solving.
- CFOs and procurement specialists have control of project financials. Real-time updates and predictive analytics provide complete transparency to stay on budget.
- Management teams get detailed reports and quick reference dashboards to keep them informed and on target.
- Supervisors and forepersons control work assignments and material deliveries for seamless workflows and sustainable progress.
- Field crews receive detailed work assignments with documents, photos, and visual cues to keep them safe, productive, and on task.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
Can Linarc survive in a fiercely competitive market? One dominated by the likes of Primavera and Procore. It offers an alternative, sometimes simpler approach that may fit better with some construction sectors. This is the first release of the software, and it impresses in terms of functionality. Rajan has built a decent-sized development team, meaning she can react to different integration requests quickly.
It will be interesting to see how Linarc evolves, what functionality it adds, and which market niche it targets. It is a long way from catching up with the likes of Procore, but it could very easily find a segment in which it can become a leader.
