– The construction industry is poorly digitized – admits Piotr Przybysz, a graduate of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and one of the project's creators. – There are fewer and fewer young people to be found there. People over the age of 50 make up more than 60% of those with building qualifications.

Finish construction on time? A dream (finally) to fulfill!

Piotr Przybysz knows what he is saying. He knows the industry well, because he has worked for both the general contractor and the investor. He has even made an attempt to introduce tools that would facilitate the work of people on the construction site, but it turned out that the widely accessible project management solutions are completely ineffective. Here you need something tailored to the needs of the industry. 

And so, during the trip to the mountains, the idea for an online platform that would combine all the key tasks and procedures associated with the building investment and essential people came up.

Managing such an investment can give one a headache. Stacks of documents, dozens of cases, hundreds of people involved. Everything has to run smoothly. And that's not usually the case. 

– I'm not aware of any construction sites that finished on schedule – Piotr Przybysz points out. – There's no point in looking for the guilty party – In my experience, the fault usually lies somewhere in the middle. We want to help people communicate. We're bringing a tool for better supervision. And the better the tools, the better the end product.

How does it work?

BinderLess is an online platform that digitizes the decision-making process and the circulation of documents on construction investments. Investors, substitute investors, inspectors, and contractors that only cross paths during the implementation of a given investment are now given a common tool for work thanks to BinderLess. It currently focuses on processing material requisition requests and is a fully functional module that has been successfully tested on the construction site managed by Blezat.

There will eventually be several modules, and they will address the most significant problems in the construction world. After managing the material requisition requests, the team intends to expand the functionality to include project documentation management, works acceptance, and construction schedule planning (using the Gantt chart and data filtration).

This is what the material requisition requests module looks like in the BinderLess platform

Order a brick!

Let's take a closer look at the first module and the matter it addresses.

Each material used on the construction site has its own documentation. You need five kinds of bricks? Well, then we have five sets of documents. One typically has a few to a dozen pages. To be signed by several decision-makers, everything must be printed in three copies. Is there something that is going to change in the meantime? Will it turn out that additional information is required? Or perhaps one of them just won't accept the documentation? We're starting the process all over again. Weeks go by. And the bricks haven't even been ordered yet!

– In our platform everything happens digitally – says Piotr Przybysz. – The inspector can accept the documentation based on the approved construction design without leaving the house, and the general contractor can see it right away The system allows the inspector to ask questions and receive quick responses. On a printed document, he would typically write that the design is not in accordance with the contract and that everything must be redone.

E-mail is another possible method of communication. But how can one effectively repeat the entire document approval process in such a scenario after the construction is finished? In theory, of course, that's possible. In practice – unrealistic.

Since everything remains on the BinderLess platform, it can serve as a sort of archive. Such a complete history is nowhere to be found in the normal circulation of documents.

For everyone

The solution is designed to be both simple to use and scalable, making it as useful as possible.

– We want our tool to be implementable on most construction sites, regardless of their size, and to useful to everyone there – says Piotr Przybysz emphatically. – We want to make the platform easily accessible. Without costly pre-implementation analyses and months of anticipation. The product must defend itself.

In order to do so, a professional team was organized, including programmers, design specialists, business and marketing specialists and, of course, people who know the construction industry. And everybody is eager to consult with the market any new emerging ideas. 

It all started with friendship

BinderLess is a perfect example of the durability of friendships made during studies. Piotr Przybysz, Mariusz Fabjański and Piotr Błądek, i.e. 3/4 of the platform's founding team, are graduates of the Warsaw University of Technology. Together, they worked in the ADek Scientific Circle, where they implemented many a student project there. Now they want to conquer the world with their start-up. The engineering and technical approach is perfectly complemented by Aleksandra Owczarek – a graduate of the University of Warsaw and the Warsaw School of Economics. She brings business and marketing experience to the founding team. 

– The team is our greatest asset – points out Piotr Przybysz. – These are people with experience that can be relied on, and this is exactly the most difficult part in building a start-up.

The whole truth about start-ups

– When starting a business, people want to do everything all at once, which can be really overwhelming – Piotr Przybysz shares the know-how that he has acquired himself, talking to aspiring start-ups. – The agile approach that characterizes start-ups works very well in this case. Instead of biting off more than one can chew, it's better to do one thing properly, test it, market it and move on. Slowly, but consistently. That's why I can tell you we're ready with our platform. Now all we need is new customers.

Anyone who works on the construction site can apply to BinderLess. The solution focuses on B2B and B2G markets. And there it is and will be pivotal to persuade the investor to implement the tool and see how it works.

Such ideas are still new in the construction industry. However, our graduates have all it takes to make this novelty a standard.