About 65% of building businesses fail in their first decade due to the harsh competitive industry. Longevity in the construction sector, therefore, stands out. 

However, Zero 9 Constructions, based on Queensland’s Gold Coast, has recently celebrated 10 years in business and in that time, scored a prestigious building award. Its construction project, Siblings at Kirra, Coolangatta, won a 2022 Master Builders’ Queensland Construction Award in the up-to-$750,000 refurbishment/renovation category. 

Emma Fisher, Project Leader, says the company, which specialises in retail fit-outs, and since 2020, high-end architecturally designed homes, is experiencing massive growth.

“In the past couple of years, our business has grown. Our team has doubled, and the types and calibre of projects we take on have exceeded our expectations and sped us on the path where we intended to be.”

Building More, Building Better

At any time, Zero 9 will have up to a dozen retail projects and three homes “on the go”. They range from restaurants, bars, gyms, nightclubs, beauty and wellness salons, hairdressers, microbreweries, art galleries, and offices. One of its most significant is the refitting of an old heritage building in Brisbane, with a project value of between $5M and $7M. It’s the old GPO building in Ann Street, Fortitude Valley.

Other projects Zero 9 has completed include:

• The Atrium Bar at the Gold Coast Star Casino, which features a “very cool, 70s’, 80s’ disco vibe in bright colours” 
• Burleigh Brewing
• EdwardsandCo at the Calile Precinct
• Hard FIZZ at Burleigh Heads, and
• Hardy Brothers in Brisbane’s CBD.

Owner/Director Ryan McAlpin started in residential construction but later moved into shop fitting.

“I had a burning desire to do what I was doing, but better! Shopfitting had this almost ‘unspoken rule’ that you did big hours, nights, never saw your family, and quality was never valued as the space would get re-fit in three-to-seven years. Why? Why can’t quality of finish, and quality of life exist in this sector? 

“This is where we focus our values as a company: on quality, detail and professionalism. We’re not about getting a job done purely to get the job done – our values lie in providing our clients with an experience that is seamless, detailed and exceeds their expectations. That is our passion and where the business started and continues to grow,” he says.

Seeking a Digital Solution for Safety

Zero 9 didn’t quite take the typical journey to digital workflows. Recognising a need for digitisation, the company has focussed on safety as their priority. In early 2022, Emma and the team began scouting for a digital solution that could serve them as a source of truth. They found a company local to Brisbane with a similar capacity to what they needed, but it ”didn’t have the same capability as 1Breadcrumb, so we signed onto the latter in March”.

There were slight concerns early on that 1Breadcrumb, as a standalone platform, would not be able to provide everything Zero 9 required. But the team soon realised just how powerful the system was.

Results with 1Breadcrumb

“Setting up a project used to take us one-to-two hours, but with 1Breadcrumb, it takes 15 minutes. The on-site induction process used to take 20 minutes; now, it’s four minutes on their phone, and that’s just doing the initial site check-in. The next time they go on site, they scan a QR code with their phone, and they’re done.”

She says her team has “loved it – we’ve had nothing but compliments because it’s so easy and simple to use”.

Zero 9 also uses 1Breadcrumb – accessible via the site workers phone and a QR Code for:

• Inducting workers to site
• SWMS workflows, with a streamlined digital process to collect and sign off on SWMS
• Providing site workers quick digital access to consult and follow their SWMS while conducting work
• Visibility of who is on which projects and when workers arrive and leave the site, and
• Delivering site notifications and updates as and when required.