“ArcSite is a great product. I’ve been showing it to everyone.”
Dan Bartlem, the owner at Aluminium Cladding Installations, works as a subcontractor doing aluminum cladding installation for commercial and residential buildings. His work involves communicating with builders and architects from providing a quote through the installation process.
Prior to using ArcSite, his workflow was slower, less precise, and limited by inadequate tools. Dan was looking for a tool that would allow him to mark-up PDFs digitally, rather than make drawings and notes by hand on a physical site plan.
After completing a free trial, he realized the numerous additional improvements ArcSite brought to his workflow.
As he puts it,
“There are other apps I could use [to mark up PDFs], but with ArcSite I can take precise measurements and mark up all in one app. It’s efficient.”
This case study highlights how Dan utilized ArcSite to improve the precision of his field measurements, streamline his back-and-forth communication with clients, and develop creative new business opportunities.
Whether providing a quote or doing an installation, Dan’s work requires a lot of measurements and calculations. A client provides him with a PDF of the site plan, but often the set-ups are complex or there are discrepancies between the plan and the job site itself. With ArcSite, Dan is able to take precise measurements for the placement of joints and panels, even accounting for offsets in small increments of several millimeters.
Using ArcSite’s tools—which he describes as working “spot-on”—he can highlight areas and perform calculations directly in the app to provide a quote to a potential client. He is also able to determine if a job will require panels of non-standard size and adjust his quote accordingly.
The precision of ArcSite eliminates all of the guesswork that used to be inherent in Dan’s initial field measurements, meaning he can create his takeoffs onsite. The easy-to-use nature of ArcSite makes Dan’s workflow much for efficient, too. He used to spend hours upon hours taking measurements; using ArcSite saves him a couple of hours every single time he goes out to a job site—time savings that add up quickly.
As a visual tool, ArcSite is far better than any hand-drawn sketch. Dan can send a marked-up PDF to a client with the click of a button, including photos and text annotations alongside the building plans. It is common for him to see builders and architects infrequently—or never at all. Using ArcSite cuts down the time it takes him to communicate with his clients and ensures everyone is on the same page.
He used to use AutoSketch on a laptop, a process he describes as slow and clunky. “Being able to have the ArcSite app on my iPad is amazing. I use an apple pencil, so I can sketch quickly and instantly email a client with exact measurements. Other tools can do photo markup, but with ArcSite everything is combined in one app. I don’t have to keep switching apps.”
In addition to improving the quality and efficiency of his work, using ArcSite has also allowed Dan to expand his business. Previously, he could not have provided accurate quotes for complex jobs involving multiple elevations or lots of radii.
Now he can take exact measurements and give a precise quote to win more business.
“ArcSite has given me the opportunity to take on more jobs. Before I would have looked at a job site and said, ‘I can’t do this. I’m sorry.’”
He also sees an opportunity to use ArcSite to do his own fabrication using a CNC machine. Drawing with ArcSite, Dan can measure the size of an aluminum panel, account for offsets and joints, and remove extraneous lines.
The measurements he takes are so precise, he’s left with an exact rendering of a panel. He can save the shape and export to a CAD format compatible with a CNC machine (rather than writing the program for the machine himself).
Dan envisions a workflow where he draws up shapes on site and sends them instantaneously to employees in the shop, who can have the parts ready and waiting for him before he even gets there.