Hello! Welcome to your quick start guide for tracking facade elements with Matrak. Our goal is to make the tracking process as straightforward as possible, guiding you step by step.

What is Matrak?

Matrak is a comprehensive network designed for tracking construction materials throughout the entire supply chain. It provides unparalleled visibility, helping you manage and coordinate materials from manufacture to installation.

Visualizing Project Progress with Matrak

Imagine having the ability to visually track your project's progress in real-time. With Matrak, that's exactly what you get.

For example, consider the above image of ICON’s Vic Place project.

On the right, you’ll see the curtain wall halfway through installation.
On the left, is how Matrak displays the same project. We use a color-coded system for instant status recognition:
- Installed (Green): signifies installed components,
- Onsite (Light Green): highlights materials in the yard,
- On the Water (Pink): denotes items en route,
- Manufactured (Orange): represents manufactured items awaiting dispatch,
- Defect (Red) : flags any defects detected, like the one ICON identified in a factory in China.

Please note: You can always customize the status name and their color codes to suit your project’s needs.

Why Matrak?

Leveraging Matrak’s visibility enhances coordination among teams, subcontractors, suppliers, and clients, mitigating the risk of delays or liquidated damages due to missing items. It positions your company as a leader, providing a competitive edge by demonstrating your commitment to efficiency and transparency.

To understand more about how Matrak can help your business, check out these articles for Manufacturers, Suppliers, Builders, Logistics, Installers, or QC firms.

Simplifying Facade Tracking with Matrak

Managing facade elements can be intricate, involving numerous small parts such as brackets, subframes, and door hardware. Matrak stands ready to streamline this complexity. Yet, for those embarking on their initial projects, we suggest a straightforward approach. This strategy allows you and your team to rapidly harness the benefits of Matrak, building up to more comprehensive tracking as you and your supply chain partners gain confidence.

Start With the Basics

Initially, focus on monitoring the key components:

Facade Panels & Subframes: The primary elements of your facade project.
Stillages: Essential for organizing and protecting facade elements during transport.
Shipping Containers: Critical for planning and logistics, ensuring materials arrive on time.

By honing in on these areas, you'll gain:

Proactive Delay Prevention: Early alerts to potential hold-ups.
Reduced Overheads: Streamlining progress claims and logistics.
Enhanced Coordination: Smoother installation through better call-up and logistics integration.

Get Started with Simple Facade Tracking

Elevation View

To streamline project management, all panels in your project will be integrated into our Take Off system. This enables precise tracking across key milestones, optimizing visibility into your site's progress.

For companies new to our platform, we recommend initiating panel tracking as Single Items. This approach not only simplifies the process for your team and supply chain but also provides a comprehensive overview of site advancement.

Enhanced Integration: It's important to note that updates made to your floor plans are seamlessly reflected in the elevation views—and vice versa. This ensures a cohesive tracking experience.

Clarification on Elevations: We distinguish between "Building Elevations" (encompassing both full or partial views) and the specific elevations related to panel or window shop drawings. This distinction helps in tailoring tracking to your project's specific needs.

Floor Plan View

By uploading both your Floor Plans and Elevations to Matrak, you gain the advantage of viewing and updating a panel from either perspective. Any modification made in the Elevation view will automatically synchronized with the Floor Plan view, streamlining the update process.

This dual-view capability proves invaluable for installers and manufacturers, allowing them to efficiently confirm completed sections based on their current work level. Additionally, the Elevation View becomes a powerful tool in managing your progress claims and reporting, whether it's to your superior or client, enhancing both communication and project management efficiency.

Discover Tracking Solutions: Which Items Matter to You?

When it comes to managing your supply chain effectively, especially in facade tracking, two main record types play a crucial role: Materials and Containers.

Record Types Explained

Materials: These include essential facade elements like panels and subframes.
Containers: This encompasses stillages and shipping containers.

Learn More About Materials Card:

Matrak creates a digital record card for each individual material involved in a project so that key information (metadata) can be stored and tracked against each item and reported on. Every record card has customisable fields to log and track information that matters to you most.

Here's brief list of What You Can See on Material card:

Floor / Zone: Identifies the final placement of the product within the project, aiding in logistical transportation and Installer operation.
QA Check: Incorporates a customizable button list with options for "N/A," "Pass," and "Fail." This feature allows for detailed In-Process Testing (ITP) and Quality Control (QC) checks tailored to specific project needs.
Comments Area: Provides a space for team members/Collaborators to note observations, concerns, or instructions related to the material.
Upload Photos: Enables uploading up to 10 photos per material record card, offering visual documentation for quality assurance, issue reporting, and risk mitigation.
Activity Logs and Timestamp: Captures every interaction and update related to the material, including who made the change and when. This feature is crucial for tracking the lifecycle of materials, resolving disputes, and safeguarding against unwarranted liabilities.

Please Note: All sections on the Material Record Cards can be customized based on your project's specific needs.

Why Track Stillages and Containers?

Tracking your stillages and containers as individual items offers several benefits. It not only helps in maintaining a detailed inventory but also facilitates the seamless management of your supply chain from the factory to the site. Here’s how:

Visibility: Gain insights into the exact contents of each container and stillage.
Efficiency: Streamline reorders and optimize crane management by knowing the location and contents of your shipping units.
Report Generation: Create custom reports like below to view and edit the contents of each unit, enhancing your ability to make informed decisions.

Managing Your Workflow: The above content is what we recommend to make it easy to get started. You can always customise this later to match your process - and we’ll train you how to do that and have Help Center ready.