Zander Schweitzer

CEO @Alloovium | Civil Engineer

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

Alternatively, we build with state owned contractors that don't have to worry about margins, but I haven't met anyone in the industry who is for this idea

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

If we want to build critical infrastructure at the rate that China does, we must give our contractors the best opportunity to make greater margin.

With greater margin, schedules can be tweaked to ensure the most time effective solution and everyone is walking away richer.

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

@ChalithaWi at first it was just a problem to solve for myself. turns out most problems persist beyond just yourself

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

One of the last jobs I was on before I went off and built Alloovium (YC S26) was a dredging job up in Cairns.

I spent most afternoons typing up truck dockets 🧵

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

Tasks like that is where the idea for Alloovium came from.

I may be wrong, but I don't think anyone ever got into engineering to count things twice.

Somewhere out there a grad is typing up docket 50 right now.

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

It's not that it was hard, but somewhere around docket 50 you misclick, and now you're checking all of them again.

The information was already written down once, I just got stuck with the job of putting it somewhere useful.

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

I'd spend the afternoon typing every one into the productivity spreadsheet. This truck did this many loads, this many tonnes.

Then you'd match them against what we had to pay, the truckies got paid by the load, and then you have to pay the dump too.

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

The material we were sending off site was potential acid sulfate soil, so we had to record exactly how much left site.

Trucks ran all day, and at the end of the day the drivers would hand over their stack of dockets.

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

We went back to first principles to rethink it. 4,500 years back 👇

https://t.co/8Xg2usuDH3

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

Construction has been doing site diaries the same way for 4,500 years.

I'm not even kidding.

In 2013, logbooks from an Egyptian inspector named Merer were found. Where his crew went, what they hauled, where they slept. One day at a time.

Same format we fill in today.

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

The most successful construction software ever written is Microsoft Word.

Which may seem like an interesting thing to say when you build construction software for a living.

Every construction tech company assumes it's competing with the other construction software companies., but if you dig in and look at what has actually survived instead across paper to digital, on premise to SaaS, desktop to mobile, you'll find that through every one of those shifts the tools nobody managed to displace were Word, Excel and Outlook. Why? Because they're flexible.

I've written my first ever blog post linked in the comments, detailing why I think this is actually a really interesting thread to follow, and I'd love your thoughts on it!

https://t.co/mpSdkwR8Vl

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

Yesterday we spoke about project setup, today is the site diary.

When I was on site, the diary was either me transcribing the supervisors notes into a word doc or doing it the next day from memory, trying to pull info from wherever I could. On the busy days it likely got skipped, and the busy days are exactly the ones you need a record of when there's a dispute.

So we made the site diary a phone call. @alloovium will talk through your day for a few minutes with you, produce the written record, with actions pulled out and transcript attached for reference. You can actually try a lightweight version of it here: https://t.co/iaGfnrhYDF

Book a time to see it in action: https://t.co/NuhbitvZTL

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

@alloovium has been deliberately built around how a construction project operates, and over the last month it has taken its biggest step yet. Starting from today, I'll be showing one piece of it a day, in these nice little videos for your viewing pleasure.

Today, we're showing something that everyone who has kicked off a job can appreciate. Once you get the excitement of winning a job nothing can start on site for a little while because someone has to sit and build out all of the project documentation, whilst also pulling together all of the admin from your team, the client and your subbies. None of it is clever work, but the job can't start without it.

This video shows the new way. Want to see it on one of your own projects? Book a time with myself: https://t.co/NuhbitvZTL

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

@imtomcurry @alloovium @ycombinator

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

@imtomcurry @alloovium @ycombinator zero regard for my own inbox

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

@alloovium @ycombinator Huge!

[Zander Schweitzer @ZanderSchweitz]

RT @alloovium: Today, we launched @alloovium on @ycombinator

On major projects, documents aren't a neat pile, they're a web. One change on…

[MGN Civil @mgncivil]

The Avopiling Foundation Specialists have done a fantastic job at our Southport Superyacht Berth project getting all the pontoon piles installed ahead of time and with millimetre accuracy! Well done team!
#piling #mgncivil #yacht #berth #pontoon #civilcontracting #earthworks

[MGN Civil @mgncivil]

Busy times in North Queensland with many exciting projects on the go. Thankful that we are able to keep the team busy in the lead up to Christmas. Here at the Mainstream Aquaculture Group site, some of the fleet has now assembled. Works are scheduled to commence within a week.