Established in 2012, INSITE IT is one of the industry’s leading providers of software solutions for material tracking and construction site management predominantly targeted at large construction sites. The Chicago-based company created a state-of-the-art software called the Insite LMS (Lean Management Software), which is a logistics and site management platform. In a recent interview with Thomas Roithmeier, CEO and co-founder of INSITE IT, we discuss the importance of construction technology and how it makes construction and site management easy.

The approach taken by INSITE IT is to deliver apt solutions to clients.

Firstly, our company was founded on a construction site while we were working as part of a site management team. Our job was to support the materials and deviations management. For us, it just was “not efficient” how vital processes were being managed with tons of paper piles of inconsistent excellists, and almost nothing was digitalized on a global scale. The experience of numerous construction sites and discussions finally ended up in starting our own business, INSITE IT. With the Insite LMS product line, we are converting our know-how into a usable set of software and processes to create a positive efficiency impact for construction site operations. Through this, our clients get a clear picture of the tools that will be implemented, thereby letting us focus on delivering various benefits.

The Insite LMS Software

The Insite LMS software is our site management and logistics platform which consists of multiple modules that can be chosen by our clients depending on their specific needs. These modules focus on the whole supply chain including main areas like manufacturing and material tracking, deviation and installation progress monitoring, and time tracking and reporting.

By default, a robust set of standard processes are available for all kinds of construction sites. If necessary, a high level of customization can also be achieved with individualized software elements. Thereby, we are providing our clients, virtually all their requirements.

The process of material tracking is the same in every company, but the data which comes from engineering department differs to a certain extent. It is imperative to incorporate the right tools into a process which are interlinked with other interfaces to get the best results. This is one of the main reasons that we, on the one hand cover a vast amount of our customers with the basic version of Insite LMS. And, on the other hand we deploy particular solutions, as each customer specializes in different areas.

We integrate our software and the single modules precisely into appropriate domains and environments and also connect other interfaces with the tools. This is how we permanently improve our software for the specific needs of our customers and develop numerous modules which in turn can be used as a standardized process.

The inspiration to start Insite IT

Improving construction sites is our passion.

We are not a standard IT company. Our employees spend lots of time on construction sites, even the developers as it is necessary to understand and see what is going on “on-site” and where the real pain points are for supervisors, workers, and managers.

To manage a construction site is no walk in the park. Some of the reasons for this are the fast-changing environments, different types of contractors, complex supply chains and often abysmal infrastructure. All these factors generate additional self-made “chaos factors.” Handling tons of paper, managing huge excel lists and chasing information all the time is very time and cost consuming and leads to several errors.

To compete on a world market, it is vital for our clients to be more efficient than their competitors. This is the benefit where we come into play to provide this extra efficiency for more successful sites.

The uniqueness of the company and its software solution.

Software engineering forms the basis of our company. Here we focus on reducing the time for material search. On industrial construction sites, usually a considerable amount of time is spent on tracking and searching the materials. Many companies still work in a non-or partly-digitalized process. With our software, the material tracking process starts with the single item in engineering. This is integrated into the Insite LMS software via the parts list. Now the whole process from engineering to purchase, logistics and site logistics, and finally to assembly can be tracked with the software, which uses barcodes or RFID tags to identify GPS positioning and quality of the item. Most companies do not integrate the software in the whole process to the extent that we do. Our entire viewpoint is focused on construction sites, bearing in mind the parts expected to arrive, the parts that need to be installed and so on. Therefore, this approach is unique and not entirely typical amongst our competitors.

On plans and geographical expansion.

We look ahead to launch new modules within the Insite LMS platform which will provide us with diversity. Finding new corporate partners and integrating better with engineering tools has also been on our forefront. Further, we look to grow bigger and handle more customers. As a whole, our focus has always been on processes and people which will ultimately help us in propelling ahead.