Golden boys, these planners

If you want to have something blasted, coated, sprayed or painted by Van Ginkel Groep the planning department will immediately get to work for you. The planners make a quotation, schedule the work for you, prepare it, supervise the execution, complete everything for you and send you the invoice. Nice and easy. So you can focus on other things. How it’s all done? Paul Schoemaker is happy to explain it to you.

Paul Schoemaker and Remco Meeuwsen are planners at Van Ginkel Groep. Paul: “Remco makes the requests for projects that can be transported to our location in Valburg, the so-called cabin work, while I’m involved in the projects on location in the Netherlands. And of course we each have our own contact that we have built up over the years and for whom we are their dedicated contact person.” At the beginning of this year, Petersen Metaalbescherming in Harderwijk became part of Van Ginkel Group and that turned out to be a golden move. “We can combine more and we strengthen each other. Petersen has a lot of capacity for cabin work and we support them with on-site work.”

Request: understand what your customer expects

As soon as these men receive your application, the preparation begins. “We first check whether it’s clear what is being asked. We prefer to receive photos or drawings, so that we immediately get an idea of what needs to be done. We also like to speak to the customer on location, so that we can determine even more precisely what the customer expects from us. Vincent Doeleman, our field planner, drives all over the country for us. With his knowledge and skills, he can see directly whether we can deliver what is required. He also pays attention to risks and takes environmental factors into account.”

Quotation: translate what your customer expects

Vincent takes notes and sends photos of the location and the work to Paul and Remco. “When Vincent returns to the office, we go through the work again and he tells us what he discussed with the customer. We then make the quotation and check it together. Despite all the preparations, it can sometimes be difficult to estimate whether we can deliver what the customer wants. In such cases, we propose a sample. Then we will do a small part on location to see what we can achieve and whether that is what the customer expects. If we live up to expectations, we will immediately continue with the work.”

Planning and up-to-date picture of the situation

As soon as there is an agreement on the quotation, the work can be scheduled. “As a subcontractor, we are often dependent on the planning of the entire project. We work on large construction projects where you schedule the work in consultation with each other. Sometimes, it can take six months to a year before a project can be started according to schedule. In such cases, we visit the location a number of times in advance to keep an up-to-date picture of the situation.”

For assignments where the execution is planned quickly, it’s enough to have a call with the contact person in the week before the start. “Then we check whether everything is still going according to plan. And if things have changed, at the construction site for example, Vincent will drive by again to take a look.”

Start time within a few weeks

If someone submits an application now, work can start in about three weeks. That seems fast, but if it’s up to Paul it would be even faster. “The whole construction industry is busy. I find it annoying, because we want to get started as soon as possible. But unfortunately, the fact that everyone is busy has an effect on our starting times. We used to be so flexible that we could start within a week, but in this high season, from June to October, we sometimes have to count on a few weeks.”

Everybody happy

Fortunately, things can sometimes be moved, because when planning work, the planners use a little bit of space to accommodate overruns. “We don’t often have to deal with delays in our work, but we still build in some reserves. The margin we maintain depends on the length of a project. With a project that lasts three days there is no delay, but with a project of several weeks we plan with a few extra days. And because we don’t need those days often in practice, we can use that space again to do some smaller work in between and that way we can keep everyone happy.”

Preparation phase

Van Ginkel Groep likes to take responsibility for everything that comes with their assignment. Placing scaffolding, for example. “In practice, clients prefer to leave that to us. We work with those scaffolds, so we know what we need and how we need it. We use the same scaffolding builder every time, who knows exactly what we expect. For complex work, we invite them to the location in advance and we are always present when they start building up, so that we can be the point of contact for them and the customer. “That’s part of taking care of our customers. We think that’s important to do.”

Execution phase

During the execution phase of the assignment, the work planners maintain close contact with their foremen who are in charge on site and who are the point of contact for the customer. “We talk on the phone twice a day and at the end of the day we see them come back at the office and we then talk about how it went. This way we remain well informed about the work and make sure that we are faced with as few surprises as possible, and that works well.”

Final phase and billing

Even after the assignment has been completed, the planners contact the client again to ask how it went and if everything happened according to plan. “We also request the purchase receipts for invoicing and we send our inspection reports. An inspection report records how we have done our work. This way the client knows that we have carried out the work under the right conditions. For example, the inspection report describes the requirements that a coating must meet. Let’s say a client wants a five-year guarantee or a lifespan of 20 years on the paint; we discuss these kinds of expectations with the paint supplier. He then prescribes a certain layer thickness. We then keep track of that layer thickness during the work and we report on this in our report, so that our client can hand it over to the end customer.” Once all this has been arranged, the billing follows.

A work planner, a true allrounder

Remco, Paul and Vincent have a lot of skills. as a planner, you have to. “In the high season you just have dozens of requests, quotes, current projects, projects in the final phase, and invoicing that you have to keep an eye on. You need to keep several balls in the air, but if you are a bit stress-resistant, you can plan well , have good communication skills, are attentive to your client and do what you say, then it will all work out.” Golden boys, these planners.

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