Rob Fox. Image: Site Passport
Our Start-up of the Week is Site Passport, which aims to transform how main contractors, developers and property managers onboard and audit their supply chains.
Chartered civil engineer Rob Fox is the founder and CEO of Site Passport. Prior to setting up the Dún Laoghaire-based business, Fox spent more than 20 years working in the construction sector, with both SIAC Construction and Walls Construction, on some of the largest construction projects in Ireland.
During that time, Fox worked on the redevelopment of the Point Depot into the O2 Arena (now the 3Arena), which was a project worth €70m. He also worked on the construction of the UCD Veterinary Hospital and, more recently, the Dublin Landings project on North Wall Quay.
Now, Fox has created Site Passport, a SaaS solution that aims to transform how main contractors, developers and property managers discover, evaluate, onboard and audit their supply chains.
“Site Passport equally empowers the supply chain, including subcontractors and suppliers, with a powerful suite of services to manage their reputation and satisfy the ever-increasing compliance demands of customers and regulators across building control, health and safety, quality assurance and sustainability,” he told Siliconrepublic.com.
Site Passport’s platform
Fox explained that Site Passport provides users with a suite of digital services to manage procurement and compliance at an organisational level, while also delivering solutions that manage the procurement and compliance of construction people, products, materials, plant, equipment and waste.
“The platform now enables all parties to capture real-time data across supply chain deployment, performance and compliance,” he added. “By providing valuable business intelligence across all the stages of construction, Site Passport delivers increased competitiveness, enhanced reputation and reduced risk for its customers.”
‘New thinking and the adoption of new technology is required to relieve the dwindling construction workforce of mundane, time-consuming tasks’
– ROB FOX
Fox said that the construction industry is one of the least digitised industries, along with agriculture. As a result, construction faces significant problems as the scale and complexity of projects continues to grow, while the number of people entering the industry falls.
“The net outcome of this is that projects are often delayed, costs regularly escalate and quality can be compromised. It is estimated that more than 35pc of construction projects are delayed by more than 30pc, and more than 20pc of projects exceed their initial budget by 25pc.
“In the context of a €10trn global construction industry, this impact can be enormous. It’s a global problem that requires new thinking and the adoption of new technology in order to relieve the dwindling construction workforce of mundane, time-consuming tasks, while supporting their skills and experience with digital tools and valuable insights.”
The technology behind Site Passport
Site Passports’s web-based platform has a discovery database that enables buyers to find relevant subcontractors and suppliers, and provides an evaluation of how suitable and compliant each subcontractor is.
There’s also a procurement communications platform that can issue tender enquiries and tracking correspondence, and an onboarding feature that mitigates delays and follow-on costs.
With Site Passport, the aim is that all company projects and packages can be monitored, while subcontractor performance can be rated. In addition, subcontractors and suppliers can promote their capabilities and experience in a concise and easy-to-understand way, and sellers can create professional product libraries and quick technical submittals in one place to get products specified and approved easily.
Site Passport enables professionals to build plant and equipment catalogues, and subcontractors can compile their training and qualification credentials for all of their people, demonstrating employee competencies.
This allows subcontractors to gather all company, people, product and plant information for a project in one place, where they can communicate project-specific information securely and efficiently.
The journey so far
“After developing the initial product offering in 2018, Site Passport has validated its product-market fit and is now working with several companies across Ireland,” Fox said. “The business has now developed a database of 2,700 specialist subcontractors and suppliers and facilitated the procurement of live projects valued at more than €60m.”
In 2019, the company was named a High Potential Start-up (HPSU) by Enterprise Ireland. It has recently opened a funding round, which will support its overseas expansion.
Looking ahead, Fox said that the company’s ultimate goal is “to deliver powerful and easy-to-use solutions to all players in the construction and property markets to demonstrate compliance, build confidence and deliver greater certainty, thereby cutting costs and resources required”.
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