David Kutschenreuter is a doer. At the Pügerl air conditioning and ventilation company, he worked his way up from manual laborer to plant manager. In the process, he is sprucing up the craftsman's company and digitizing its workflows.
David Kutschenreuter is on his own at an early age. At 16, he moves alone from Chemnitz to Lower Bavaria to complete an apprenticeship as a baker. In the process, he meets his future wife, who is herself a pastry chef. After his apprenticeship, David Kutschenreuter works as a baker and kitchen assistant. He pulls double shifts, working early mornings, late evenings and weekends to build a livelihood for his young family. He has always been a workhorse, says the 46-year-old. It's easy to believe that. But for the sake of his family, he reoriented himself because of the work hours. This is how David Kutschenreuter came to Pügerl GmbH in 2008. The Lower Bavarian company specializes in ventilation and air-conditioning technology, fire protection and sanitation and is run by owner Max Pügerl.
In the trades, you have to prove yourself
David Kutschenreuter looks back on his start as an unskilled worker: "I had to really fight my way through to be respected, especially by the older employees." He was only accepted when he could prove what he was capable of. In his free time, he continues his education, earning a degree as a refrigeration, ventilation and fire protection technician on the side. But the inquisitive craftsman is not only convincing in technical terms. Due to his own self-employment, he knows his way around accounting. He supports the head secretary in the office. When the secretary is absent due to illness, David Kutschenreuter takes over her office duties. He outsources the payroll accounting, and writes offers and invoices himself. Gradually, the 46-year-old also takes over the job planning and scheduling of the installers. In 2010, Max Pügerl transfers the air-conditioning division to him completely, and in 2015, the company management. For David Kutschenreuter proves to be not only skilled in his craft, but also very business-minded. In 2017, he succeeds in doubling the profits of the craft business. In the years that follow, he continues to increase profitability.
How do you modernize a traditional business?
The plant manager tackles one problem after another. If you start too many construction sites at the same time, you won't be able to finish anything," he explains. The first thing is to calculate the offer. He does this himself and calculates each offer precisely. He does not use estimates. He prefers to plan for buffers and, for example, not only charges for the outward journeys of the installers, but also for the return journeys. Next, David Kutschenreuter addresses the company's liquidity. After all, the company often has high out-of-pocket expenses for large Jobs. In addition, there are always delays on the customer side when payments are received. The company needs correspondingly high liquidity reserves. To ensure this, David Kutschenreuter switches to factoring. He passes the invoices to an external provider who takes care of the payment processing. Although this costs the company up to 3% of the invoice amount, the service ensures that payments are received. The success proves David Kutschenreuter right; the company's profits increase. But the workforce is shrinking. When David started in 2008, there were 15 employees; now there are only eight. But the plant manager prefers that, as he retains control over all Jobs and work.
Digital Dispatching planning and documentation
Next, David Kutschenreuter takes on job and Dispatching planning. He is actually annoyed by the planning board with the slips of paper and the Dispatching plan on paper. But at the time, there was nothing suitable," says the plant manager. He did test a tradesman app two years ago. But it was not convincing. The operation confused him and his foreman. He was also offered a complete tradesman software package, but this cost several thousand euros per year. The plant manager thinks this is far too expensive: I simply wanted an app for scheduling work so that the installers don't have to call five times from the construction site to find out exactly where they have to go. It has already happened to us that they have driven 100 kilometers in the wrong direction. They had mixed up the address of the client and the place of execution." But that's not all. David Kutschenreuter is annoyed when annually recurring maintenance Jobs are forgotten in the day-to-day business. The company carries out around 150-200 fire protection, ventilation and heating maintenance jobs. Some customers think of it themselves, but for many, the tradesmen have to proactively contact them to make an appointment. If this is overlooked, some of the maintenance is forgotten or done by other companies.
Introducing the Meisterwerk App
While surfing the Internet, David Kutschenreuter discovers the Meisterwerk App ad. Spontaneously, he signs up for a test account. Our colleague Dominic Wallisch shows and explains the functions of the craftsman app again in a video call. After that, David Kutschenreuter gets started right away. He also gives master heating installer Silvio Kieslinger direct access to the app. He first enters Jobs over the course of a day, which is a bit tedious. But since then, the trained master heating engineer has become a big fan of the tradesman app: "Everything is transparent, anyone can access it. So you can help yourself if you want to look something up. Karin Moser is responsible for the office and was just on vacation. The office worker smiles: "When I came back from vacation, the Meisterwerk app was already firmly established." She creates customers and Jobs in the Meisterwerk app. David Kutschenreuter and Silvio Kieslinger then always assign the installers up to six weeks in advance. The changeover is surprisingly easy for the staff; almost all employees quickly find their way around. However, one of the installers, who is already approaching retirement age, is having trouble. David Kutschenreuter first had to get him a new smartphone so that he could use all the app's functions.
Morning meeting on the touchscreen
In the morning, the staff meets in the kitchen to drink coffee together and discuss what has been done and what Jobs are pending. David Kutschenreuter quickly realizes that instead of typing away on his smartphone, he needs a larger screen. So he has a 32-inch touchscreen installed. This way, the plant manager and the installers click through the Jobs and look at the documentation together. Work Jobs, plans, Job slips signed by the customer, and photos of the work are loaded directly into the app by the employees. They can access the files on their cell phones while on the road or during meetings in the kitchen. David Kutschenreuter likes to look at the photos of the work. When he taps and zooms in on the images on the large touchscreen, he sees every detail, no matter how small. Here the old screws were not replaced, there a few scratches were made in the toilet bowl. The installer has to go back to the customer and correct the mistake. David Kutschenreuter has a good long-term memory. Even after ten years, he remembers the position of the pipes he installed. Nevertheless, he is glad that the documentation of the jobs now runs in an Jobly fashion and that the photos of the jobs no longer pile up on his cell phone. In the documentation of the Meisterwerk app, other employees will also be able to see what was done in the years to come.