When a local precaster needed a new IT system and reached out to Muka Development Group, it was the start of a long relationship that changed the industry.
Garden State Precast was just getting started when Kirby O’Malley realized they needed a new type of business management system. Kirby, his brother Gene and partner Dan Morris purchased the plant in 1999, and they were staring at an IT system that was clunky and antiquated.
“I needed to find somebody, and the precast industry didn’t have anything,” O’Malley said. They were looking for a vendor to help them wrap their arms around the accounting and IT side of the business. “We had bought some new computers, and the person who sold them to us knew James and Magda Muka,” O’Malley said. “He told us, ‘I know these people who are really smart and have a small company.’” That was the beginning of a long relationship that changed both companies, and, in essence, the precast concrete industry.
At the turn of the century, Muka Development Group was a small accounting firm focused in other busines sectors in New Jersey and New York region. O’Malley introduced them to the precast concrete industry and asked whether they could develop some precast specific software.
James Muka, a CPA, spent months at the Garden State facility in Farmingdale, N.J., learning about the industry. “He was watching what we did, and how we scheduled and how we did our engineering and takeoffs,” O’Malley said. “So, he really immersed himself in the precast industry, and that’s how we got started.”
Fast forward 20 years, and Garden State Precast has a thriving business that runs exclusively on what is now known as Titan 3000 – a full-blown precast concrete plant management system used by precast plants throughout North America. It all started with an IT issue and an idea.
“We do everything on Titan,” O’Malley said. “Credit, collections, all our receivables, all our invoicing. That’s one of the things I like about it. It does everything – soup to nuts. We don’t need a separate Excel spreadsheet for something. Everything is there.”
Garden State Precast has worked extensively with Muka Development Group over the years in testing new modules. They are currently working on implementing the QCTitan mobile app at the plant, as the company continually moves toward becoming paperless. They’ve already taken giant steps down that road. It started early on with a Titan accounting module.
“I had James come over to the plant and showed him all the paper we had,” O’Malley said. “So, he developed a module and we got rid of 28 filing cabinets. We only have one filing cabinet left in the company. Everything gets scanned in, and it’s all accessible. You can access it from your phone. You can access it remotely, and that’s been a big thing because so many of us work remotely now.”
Customers appreciate it also, O’Malley said. “When we do our quoting, we can put it in almost any form that the customer wants. The data goes in, and we can bring it out any way they want. Our customers really enjoy the fact that we can customize it for the way in which they want to receive the quote. Same information. But some people like it one way, some people like it the other way. We can send it electronically. It’s a modern convenience our customers really like, because our quotes are really easy to understand,” he added. “It’s always a good thing when your customers have confidence in what you’re doing.”
The team at the Muka Development Group would definitely agree with that statement!
