. How could technology alleviate some of Sunrise’s resource management issues?Sunrise Restoration and Remodeling is a small, privately-

owned construction business specializing in restoring residential properties that have been damaged by fires and floods. Sunrise has a few dedicated project managers working diligently to oversee clean-up and reconstruction for many properties at a time. Each customer’s project is unique, depending on the extent of damage and scope of work. Once Sunrise sends an estimator out to assess the scope of work, the project is transitioned to a project manager for completion.

Much of the restoration work is completed by expert construction workers who are subcontracted by Sunrise Restoration. It is very challenging to find high-quality, reliable, consistent, and available contractors with the number of homes in need of repairs. Sunrise has worked with many companies only to find that they cannot use them again because they rushed through a job and the quality of work was terrible. Their database of approved contractors is very limited and diminishing. They are constantly looking for new subcontractors, but finding good options is usually the result of trial and error. This inconsistency and lack of available subcontractors has led to challenges in providing realistic time estimates for jobs

(different contractors provide varying time estimates).

Completing jobs on schedule has been challenging.

Due to the continuous demand for technical construction resources, Sunrise has recently hired two technicians on staff full-time. These technicians are generalists who can perform many construction activities, but they each have their own restrictions according to levels of expertise and physical limitations from past injuries.

Therefore, although each technician is available 40 hours per week, they are not able to complete some tasks. Technicians are intended to be a supplemental human resource, working in addition to the subcontractor experts.

Sunrise Restoration and Remodeling wants to keep project costs low and profit margins high. To incentivize project managers to keep costs down, the owners pay project managers a commission for coming in under budget and a percentage of the difference between the budgeted project amount and actual costs spent. The commission is paid upon project completion. Therefore, the project managers are constantly seeking the cheapest resources they can find without sacrificing quality standards and they want to finish projects as quickly as possible. It is up to the project managers to find subcontractors for their projects and they do not like to share with the other Sunrise project managers. For completing work, they also want to use the in-house technicians as much as possible because the labor hours billed to their projects are much lower than the subcontractor rates.