Category: Practice

Quadmac Solutions is a majority Indigenous owned enterprise formed jointly by Dmac & Quadric, with the specific aims to increase the availability of Indigenous goods and services, promote Indigenous economic development, and participate in growing the Indigenous business sector.

About: Dmac Personnel is a market leader in the provision of staffing solutions providing industry partners with recruitment of skilled and experienced employees throughout Australia. Dmac Personnel has the ability to meet any workforce requirements. Their professional consultants can source and supply industry with reliable skilled staff for either short term or long term contracts.  Their current Indigenous Managed Services model delivers on all functions of Indigenous engagement. Dmac Personnel embed an Indigenous Project Officer within a client’s internal infrastructure where they will combine technology systems and vendor management capabilities to execute on deliverables within clients Indigenous Participation Plans.

About: Quadric are a multidisciplinary building company, with a successful 30+ year industry history. Their work spans a broad range of projects and clients, including Government, Corporate, Universities, Hospitals, Airport, Retail, Hospitality, Architects, Designers and small private companies. Originally established specifically to provide fitout and refurbishment services, Quadric are uniquely structured to offer a largely in house service.  With a portfolio of past work  spread over $750million, and 900,000,000 sqm of award winning commercial interiors and, it is on these foundations, Quadric have built a well-known and respected industry reputation, providing efficient and reliable fitout services consistently delivering highly satisfactory project outcomes for the key deliverables of control, cost, time and quality.

Quadmac Solutions aims to make a positive change to the lives of Indigenous people.  We encourage parties with Indigenous Participation Policies (IPP) to make contact with Quadmac Solutions to discover what we can do.

For more information contact:

Jim Godwin

info@quadmac.com.au

Quadmac Solutions Pty Ltd

43 McCarthy Road
PO Box 296
Salisbury QLD 4107
Phone | Fax
+61 7 3275 0000 | +61 7 3275 2205

 

 

 

At Quadric we have always been blessed with staff that are willing to go the extra mile to make us great.  We regularly have requests from staff wanting to volunteer their time to improve their workplace so that it keeps in the condition that we all want to work in.

Continual evolution of this sort is in our blood and to acknowledge and give appreciation to those who have cared over the years, we decided to formalise the process with a Family Fun Day and Working Bee we called ‘Join in’.

Held on Saturday 4th of November, it involved joinery, furniture, painting, corking, cleaning, organising, gardening, filing, recycling, and a bit of fun for the whole family.

The result was a feel-good experience that is more valuable to us as a team than just the number of hours put in……and we also get a nice work environment to go with it.

The refreshing appeal of paperless desks and shiny new workbenches, cannot be underestimated for the health!

A big thank you to those involved on the day including staff, family, friends, and subcontractors who donated their time not just on this day, but often over the years.

 

 

 

 

At Quadric, our staff undergo a level of training and development which far exceeds statutory and even best practice standards, with at least 5% of our payroll spent on formal training both internally and externally.  This development may take the form of consultation, coaching, communities of practice, lesson study, mentoring, reflective supervision and technical assistance.

We partner with leading training organisations to recruit the best in graduates for the various Quadric divisions.  Our ratio of 1 apprentice for every 4 tradesperson in the workshop is testament to the success of Australian Industry Training College’s model for fast-tracking school leavers into the workforce.  With our 2 new school based apprentices this year gaining some valuable experience, this process ensuring the future of our high performing workforce.

Our long history of involvement with QUT has assisted us in connecting with our newest team member William Pearce.  Currently studying Urban Development, he is being supported through a Building Cadetship with Quadric and whilst we no longer ‘throw people in the deep end’, we like to give levels of responsibility that foster applied learning of their studies.  Will has taken to the role well and is adding value to the service we offer our clients.

Our proud association with Bond University has led to several professional work placements in our Project division including our newest appointment of Aldion Cirongu as Contract Administrator.  Aldion is a qualified Civil Engineer in his native Albania and has recently received the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence in his Masters of Professional Construction Practice.  The Quadric Directors were so impressed by his achievements that he was offered an expenses paid flight back home to visit family.

Quadric as a builder, even today, remains firmly rooted in the past. We use first principals to plan, construct, and complete a project and can be relied upon for down-to-earth collaboration. We recognise our continued success in your project success.

Quadric was engaged by the Department of Education and Training (DET) to remodel of Block E (level 1) for the Brisbane School of Distance Education (BSDE) providing:

• Staff Work Room for 14 BSDE staff

• Wet Area/Tea Making Space

• Resource Preparation and Store

• 3 x Small Studio Areas

• 2 x Large Studio Areas

The opening ceremony attended by our very own Steve Smythe included the unveiling of the plaque with Minister for Education Kate Jones, also present was Joe Kelly MP Member for Greenslopes.

In an era when the medium of online learning is growing at a rapid rate across the globe, BSDE are at the forefront of contemporary education. They, together with six colleague schools of distance education across the state, have taken on the challenge of making our online learning a purposeful adventure. Knowing our students and helping them reach their potential is the key.

This project is a testament to the strong relationship forged between Quadric and DET,  to which we our justifiably proud.

A word from Ben Scott, Managing Director of Quadric:

“I walked out of a meeting with one of our key clients the Dept of Education yesterday feeling very blessed to have such great staff.  We did initiate the meeting, but all we called for was a quick meet and greet, instead the reception we received was far more than expected with a great number of their team keen to offer their support of our performance on their projects over the past few months and years. 

Last year we took a good look at Quadric and where we want to be in the future.  We workshopped what Quadric does well, what we don’t do well (you cant be good a everything), and most importantly what we should start doing; for those of you uninitiated its called a keep/stop/start.  The outcomes were not rocket science, but the act of having the whole team around working ON the business not IN the business was refreshing. Writing it all down seemed to make our focus more concrete.   It was decided that we would focus our efforts on ‘good work, good people’, being selective about the type of work that suits are skillset, targeting great customers to services beyond expectations, and ensuring that we retain the best staff.  Now I don’t propose that we have got it perfect; this is a constantly evolving process. Short term priorities often get in the way of our long term goal such as the daily grind, workload fluctuations, and the delicate balancing of overhead versus turnover, however if the feedback received from Dept Education is anything to go by, then we are on are certainly on our way.

A big thankyou to Steve Smythe and Gavin Thorley in our Special Projects division for having such a natural affinity to client satisfaction and JP Kennedy our Construction Manager for the stellar effort on the Brisbane State High job.  You made a difficult project worth a couple of million dollars over the xmas break seem effortless, when we know it was a big ask.”

As the construction industry continually evolves, we as participants both commercially and personally adapt and refine, finding the ‘best fit’ for our expertise.  At Quadric we have always kept one ear to the ground, listening for the direction the clients want to take their projects in.  We have noticed, and those of you in the industry would have no doubt also noticed, that over the last few years a shift in the thinking to the way projects are procured, relationships are forged, and ultimately changing the roles and responsibilities of those that are party to a project.  Now, ours is not to question whether one particular brand of procurement is better than other.  In fact, as a Builder we feel that we rarely get the opportunity to influence such things.  We are in a key position however, to notice, comment, and positively react to such change.

A recent post on social media entitled “The Job Architect is dead! Long live the Design Manager!” from an fellow industry professional got us thinking about the role of the Design Manager and what that means for the traditional role of Architect or Designer.  Whilst it is an excellent snapshot of the situation, we draw different conclusions about the role of the Design Manager and see this new shift is a way to lend additional support to the Architect and Designer thereby making their place even more necessary.

When Quadric first opened it’s doors, similar to the writers experience, the Architect was first point of contact with the client and performed the role of Principal Consultant.  Soon the progression was for clients to use project managers to help them deliver their projects quicker.  At the time, all projects were fully documented before tender ideas where developing about other ways of speeding up the process of getting the contractor started on site sooner. This developed into design and build where tender occurred earlier in the design process.

“Originally the service of advising the client about the best way to procure the project had been provided by the architect, now this was being taken over by others.  The profession as a whole did not seem too worried about this shift in responsibilities, possibly because it felt it did not effect the core business of designing. It was the start of a growing trend for others to take roles that had been originally been provided by the architect.”

“Fast forward two and a half decades and the role of architects, designers, project managers, and principal contractors in the process of delivering projects, continues to develop and change. The services that used to be considered the core business of delivering good architecture is becoming more and more effected by changes to responsibilities and the creation of new roles.  Today the procurement of projects has become more and more accelerated with clients seeing the need to get the contractor involved in the process sooner rather than later to get projects started quicker but also to share the risks for the delivery of the project.  Today, most medium and large projects are tendered earlier and earlier in the design process to get contractors engaged on site and involved in the completion of designs.”

“Another reason (and possibly more relevant,) for this shift, in the dynamic of architectural offices, is that contractors and clients realise the value of experienced professionals, like senior architects, and want them to help, the client or contractor, streamline the procurement and construction processes and reduce risks.  They call this role design manager.”

At Quadric was have always participated and contributed to the design process, irrespective of our ‘official’ role in the project.  We feel that this new shift, whatever has the caused the trend, to be one that the industry at large can successfully adapt and evolve positively with.  We feel that those industry relationships that have been forged over the last 35 years will continue to strengthen as we say hello to the Design Manager.  Whilst some may say “goodbye Architect, hello Design Manager”, we say “welcome all”.

 

 

 

 

Taking place at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre’s forecourt, the world record attempt saw Crust for Australia aiming to take the title from previous holder Italy, the birthplace of pizza. Quadric’s was pleased to provide our expertise in site establishment and manufacturing of components that helped make the event a success.  A big thank you to our stellar Quadric Joinery team for making this event possible.

Extraordinary technological & structural change is transforming how we live, work, communicate and pursue good ideas; with traditional roles of people and companies being reimagined.  Quadric is embracing this idea and aims to stay at the forefront of industry by investing in innovative solutions.   We acknowledge that a highly skilled workforce is key to capitalising on business growth opportunities and help drive the rapid technological and structural change present in today’s business environment.

With a keen eye on our core sectors of fitout, refurbishment, and construction, the team at Quadric is taking a good look at how we are best placed to add the greatest value.  We are also looking further afield to structural control of our sub-markets (Joinery, Partitions, and Maintenance) as well as to our increasing diverse influence regionally (offices in Sydney & Darwin, works in Melbourne & Hobart, and our production partners in Singapore, Malaysia, China, and the UK).

We are considering:

1. What the core drivers are that makes the various project participants involved in a job come back to us again and again, and how can we ensure that this is captured in the training that we provide our people.

2. How can disruptive technologies be used in a way that adds genuine value to the process?

3. Structural control over the various facets of our role and location, to ensure consistency, but in a way that does not stifle R & D.

In the course of our search for answers, Quadric was awarded a grant from the Australian Government Industry Skills Fund, after it was identified that through further investment Quadric and other companies like it would benefit the Australian economy by harnessing new sources of growth and deliver the next age of economic prosperity.

The first step of the grant has been awarded for co-contribution to further tertiary education for our Managing Director Ben Scott in the University of Queensland Owner Manager Program.  The original program was established in 2001 by the IceHouse, Asia Pacific’s leading business accelerator. Since that time over 700 business owners have completed the program in Australia and New Zealand.  The  program incubates 25 business owners together with 2 lead facilitators and 30+ experts, and guest speakers in a unique way that fosters the transmission of ideas.

The outcome to date for Quadric as a whole has been profound, but we are only just getting started.  We are excited to see what the next phase of our investments in innovation will bring.

Dynamic operations call for innovative solutions.  Quadric has partnered with the award winning Rapid Global to roll out a cloud based system for management of critical OHS functions on our sites and business at large.  Incorporating:

– Rapid Induct, an online induction software system for the creation and delivery of online induction and training courses for employees and contractors.  Going beyond most e-learning software and online induction software, with its capability to provide workplace training for in-house staff as well as site personnel.

– Rapid Contractor, an online contractor management system, manage the entire lifecycle of contractor compliance from pre-qualification to insurance documentation, induction and on site performance. This provides Quadric an end to end solution for contractor compliance management.

– Rapid Incident, an online incident reporting system, which allows personnel to instantly advise, record, and investigate events in the field.  Timely information like this can save lives, and Quadric sees the value in this fact.

– Rapid Service Alert, an online software system that enables us to schedule regular reminders for repetitive tasks such as equipment maintenance, fire inspections and audits and any other regularly performed task.  Any regular planned maintenance or task can be scheduled and tracked in Rapid Service Alert with notifications and alerts delivered to the allocated responsible person.

Quadric is justifiably proud of the investment it has made in best practice initiatives of this sort. 

Find out more    or  Contact Matthew Pulling HSEQ Manager on +61 7 3275 0006

 

As a fitout industry founding participant, Quadric has been delivering a construction service for 35 years.  Our quality approach to projects through buildability input, construction, and manufacturing has fostered a strong relationship with the design community.

As the Australian market matures, a shift in traditional roles has been seen, with end users and client advocates driving the need for alternative methods of project delivery.  Quadric has heard the call and now has added a range of significant Design and Construction projects to it’s folio. We encourage collaborators at all levels of the project cycle to connect with us to see what can be achieved with Quadric.

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Our staff undergo a level of training and development which far exceeds statutory and even best practice standards, with at least 5% of our payroll spent on formal training both internally and externally.  Quadric as a builder, even today, remains firmly rooted in the past. We use first principals to plan, construct, and complete a project that works, and can be relied upon for down-to-earth collaboration that aims for the common goal of a successful project. We recognise our continued success in your project success.

Find out more

We go to great lengths to test our commitment to providing and maintaining a safe and risk free work environment. Whilst we have been the holder of AS4801 third party certification for over 10 years, we have also held voluntary accreditation to the Federal Safety Commissioner’s OHS scheme for more than half of this time; renowned as the toughest in audit based scheme in the country.

The result is an impeccable health and safety record across all building services and an ethos of care and responsibility for the health and safety of ourselves and all others in the workplace.

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