There’s a New Sheriff In Town, The Johnson Controls ASSET Tool, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

GOOD: Johnson Controls, Inc (JCI) promised they were going to release some exciting new products and tools — and they have delivered! The JCI Application System/Selection and Estimation Tool (ASSET) is just plain awesome. The ASSET tool evolved from JCI’s branch tool, which now avails this successful application largess to its ABCS distributors and contractor partners.

ASSET allows you to select and refine systems from the project library, generate proposals, submittals, and ordering documents for your project, significantly reducing your overhead in all phases of the process.

The comprehensive menu driven program walks you through the Preparation, Take-off, Refine, Bid, Submit, and Order sections, while all of the related documents are being collocated within the project folder.

We are talking about details down to the cover sheet, warranty statement, drawings, point lists, and sequence of operations — as well as the system documents, mechanical schedules, catalog pages, specification and engineering documents — concluding with the ability to email the order in with drop ship instructions.

Formidable, accurate, and reliable, the ASSET tool brings professional quality and depth to your proposals. An approved submission package could result in a deliverable, billable at project startup, instead of its present place as a nagging chore done at the end of projects — before final payment can be received.

BAD: If you deviate too far from the provided application pathway, the project bindings could be broken, but you will be cautioned before the proposed changes become final.

The time and money savings could be so significant that someone who fully masters and utilizes this tool to its full capacity might aim outside their market sweet-spot. This is not in itself a bad thing, but an overly ambitious contractor might bite off more than he can chew.

UGLY: The ASSET tool could cause some internal grief because it will challenge the status quo and the domain of the staff members whose sole responsibility was once limited to preparing and finishing project paperwork.

Though the ASSET tool is very reasonably priced, it does come with a modest renewal fee. The original license key expires one calendar year after it is enabled.

The ASSET tool is the most effective tool and potential money-maker out there! It gives the overhead-challenged contractor the best opportunity to compete — by shifting limited resources from paperwork to successful project bidding, installations, and customer satisfaction.

Some changes are intuitive and some changes come from good advice. Like my daddy always told me, “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.” Stay current with tools and technology and look into the JCI ASSET tool today!