Industrial Solutions are delighted to announce that RapidSpec is the recipient of our Software Choice Award for 2022.
Managing Director, Derek Brown has devoted twenty years to perfecting exceptional automation software for fire door specification and the manufacturing industry. The smart system offers instant door specification designs using all components including hinges, locks, glass and beading fittings etc. Once a fire rating has been chosen, the software won’t allow selection of any item that is not compliant with that fire rating.
RapidSpec is offered on a monthly lease plan so there are no upfront costs at all. Installation is free, Training is free and support is included with the lease cost. That makes RapidSpec financially risk free. Derek says that they can only do this because ‘We have a great product.’
Following the Grenfell Fire tragedy in 2017, the subsequent Hackitt Review makes fire door specifications even more stringent, to prevent any further tragedies on that scale. The Building Safety Act requires industry-wide compliance on fire safety and RapidSpec offers the building and construction industry a foolproof solution, as Derek illustrates, “RapidSpec will eliminate errors, it will effect a considerable reduction in administration cost and it will give customers an edge when it comes to quotation presentation but its primary function is to increase profit. So much so that if a customer’s return on investment is not at least 3 times the cost of the software, we say you probably don’t need it.”
“The software has huge capacity. One of our customers has been using RapidSpec for only 4 years and has used less than 1GB of storage for 9,500 projects with nearly 100,000 drawings for over 300,000 doors. An astonishing 115 people can view the robust system at any one time, with capacity for 45 different edits simultaneously. Despite this huge storage capacity, when a customer calls with a question you can find any individual door from any project in 15 seconds so any user can answer most questions or make changes immediately. How’s that for customer service?”
Derek explains the company’s inception, “Product development started in 1998 when I was asked to solve a productivity problem for a fire door manufacturer in the Midlands. Surprisingly they had sold twice their maximum output for each of the following three months. Productivity per employee had to be increased by at least 100% and it was obvious that the lack of clear shop floor information was a major contributor to poor output and the amount of re-work that had to be eliminated. Poor quality information was a serious issue causing 5–10 % of scrapped door sets every month. I had to create a very simple version of RapidSpec to eliminate these errors and meet the production target. I also had to make changes to the systems and procedures of the company resulting in successful completion of all of the work on time. So our software was not the sole reason for this result but it made such a huge difference that I realised that there would be a market for this type of product.”
“We supply software for fire door specifiers for building contractors, architects and fire door manufacturers. The software is used for specification, quotations and automatic elevation drawings. On the manufacturing side, we also produce bills of materials and this allows for reduced sales and administrative costs by 20-25%, increased sales through quotation presentation, error elimination and making door specification easy, quick and accurate.”
Customers such as Eugene Cornally Managing Director of Door Kits Ltd was delighted with the speed and efficiency of the software design, “We’ve only used RapidSpec for three months so far and already it’s a godsend. Two of us in the office recently quoted for a €70,000 project in one and a half hours. This would normally have taken at least a day.”
Derek says, “New users need a maximum of two hour training. Often when we give this training, you can see in operator’s eyes that they just want us to go away so that they can have a go. That is something very rare, most people hate software.”
The company is based at Unit 5 BVIC, Blythe Valley Business Park, Solihull in the West Midlands.
To see RapidSpec in action, visit the W Trade Exhibition from 24th-27th September 2023 at the NEC Birmingham.
For a free two-week trial and for further information, please contact Carol, Robin, Ian or Derek on: 0121 506 9020 or complete the contact form on the website: www.rapidspec.co.uk