Façade projects lose money between the factory and the site because that is where the record stops. Inside the factory, the cutting software knows the list; on site, the foreman knows the wall. Between them are five moments where a fact is made and usually not written down: the issue of material to a zone, the stage a zone has reached, the dispatch of that zone on a truck, its receipt on site, and its installation. Each unwritten moment becomes a phone call later, and some become losses — profiles issued to the wrong zone, a panel rebuilt because nobody knew it was already in coating, a truck that left with fewer crates than the note said, work installed and never claimed. The five places are below, each with the record it needs.
The store hands profiles to the floor against a verbal request. Nobody records which batch, how many, or for which zone — so the next zone's material is quietly consumed by this one, and the shortfall appears three weeks later as an urgent order. The record: an issue note naming the zone, the request, the source batches and the quantity, made by the storekeeper at the moment of handing over.
A zone is "in production". Fabricated? Coated? Waiting for glass? The production manager knows, and he is on the phone. The record: a stamp per stage with the actor and time, and the drawing revision it was performed to, so the zone's position is read rather than asked.
The truck leaves with a hand-written note. What was on it lives in the driver's cab; whether it had passed inspection lives in nobody's memory. The record: a delivery note issued by the system, for inspected zones only, with an identity on each zone that the site can scan.
Site signs the note, the note stays in the cab, and a week later the store says it was issued and the site says it never came. The record: a receipt against the dispatched delivery, with the name of the person who signed, made on site and closing the note.
The foreman says the east elevation is "mostly done". The claim goes in with a number the QS estimated, and the consultant disputes it with a number he estimated. The record: installed quantities entered daily per zone, capped at the zone's quantity, each with a photo stamped with the name and time.
A general contractor does not have this gap: it buys finished packages and manages a site. A fabricate-and-install contractor owns a factory and a site, and the truth between them — which batch went to which zone, which stage it reached, what left, what arrived, what went into the wall. Fabrication software stops at the factory door. Field tools start at the site gate. The space between has been run on WhatsApp because nothing else covered it.