Heritage Homes Inc. of Michigan, Stevensville, Mich.
Heritage Homes of Michigan chairman Michael Cook says his superintendents store job specs on their Treo 600 PDAs. Out on the jobsite, they can easily refer to all of the job’s details and even reference related Word and Excel documents using Documents to Go add-on software by DataViz. “Changes in a Word document can be made in the field or notes can be added,” Cook says. The software supports documents created in WordPerfect, Word Pro, Palm DOC, Quattro Pro, Lotus 123, AppleWorks, and ClarisWorks as well. The Treo also functions as a telephone, personal organizer, and digital camera and features wireless e-mail, text messaging, and Web browsing.
Heritage Homes employees also use Nextel phones with the Direct Connect feature that provides the efficiency of a two-way radio. “It has replaced the walkie-talkies we used to use,” Cook says. The Direct Connect feature allows employees to quickly contact colleagues in the field or the office and contractors and suppliers nearby or hundreds of miles away. Cook says there’s a financial benefit as well: “Using [Direct Connect] saves using cellular calling minutes.”
