Growth is an exciting time for any construction company. Larger contracts are flowing your way and your company may be dominating work in your region, and beyond, as you expand. The company may even be at the point where international development projects are being floated your way. While there’s a lot of new change and buzz to get used to, there’s no better time to make adjustments from within to meet the growing demands.
Now is the time to look at the inner workings and operations to make necessary improvements that can allow you to scale successfully. Beyond hiring the extra workers and experienced personnel, it’s time to take a serious look at the technology you have in place. Nonetheless, for many companies, technology is more of an afterthought rather than an essential component for continuing growth momentum.
One ENR Top 600 Specialty Contractor, Power Design Inc. recognized early the importance of prioritizing technology during key growth stages. While having the workforce and experience to handle the increasing demands of more business, the electrical contractor realized that their technology also needed to keep pace with the rest of operations. As a result, they enlisted more technology solutions like PlanGrid to help meet their growth needs.
Recently, Power Design directors, managers and superintendents stepped in front of the camera to explain how mobile technology changed the way they could perform processes to improve workflows, organize teams and keep the project moving forward smoothly without complications as they experienced better company growth. Watch below:
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Using Digital Technology to Improve Construction Collaboration
To ensure their growth didn’t outpace their capabilities, Power Design wanted to be proactive instead of reactive with their approach to technology, according to Chief Innovation Officer Raghu Kutty.
“It’s been interesting to see Power Design evolve and change over the last decade with us investing more into technology,” Raghu explained. “We’re trying to solve problems by being more proactive, rather than being reactive, trying to see where we can leverage technology to solve some of the business problems that exist, and trying to figure out ways to automate and optimize, and eliminate some of the processes that slow things down for any company.”
One main issue that Power Design ran into was not having sufficient collaborative technology between their project teams across the country and in their corporate office. “When we started evaluating mobile technologies for Power Design, the first challenge that we wanted to address was plan management. Construction obviously runs off plans, and the challenge that we always ran into was there would be an RFI or a change that existed that got brought into our corporate office, but our job in Denver didn’t get that information.” Raghu continues,
“The last thing we want to do is to have our people in the field build off wrong plans.”
Mobile technology ended up being part of the solution for Power Design as they turned to PlanGrid.
With PlanGrid, the company found that real-time access to plans increased their efficiency, “We have a lot of information, a lot of moving parts, but it gave us that ability to instantly put the pieces together, put them in an organized fashion so that it was easy to get to and it was consistent,” commented David Hughes, Director of Virtual Design & Construction.
“Didn’t matter if you were on a job in California, in Washington D.C., everything appeared the same, it was tagged the same and it worked the same.”
PlanGrid’s tools and resources solved the disconnect between all construction operations. Providing collaboration tools in one mobile software platform helped workers both in the office and the field.
The Benefits of Mobile Technology for Power Design
When it came to implementing and using PlanGrid in their operations, different employees saw significant changes in how the innovative mobile technology changed their work processes. Some of these benefits, detailed in the video, include:
- Ability to see drawing changes instantly anywhere at the jobsite
- Increased organization structure capabilities
- Improved communication between teams
- Better information accessibility in real-time
The benefits of PlanGrid’s productivity tools became the solution that Power Design sought so could continue to scale their business. Stephanie Morge, Power Design’s Field Training Manager, summed up their construction company’s current viewpoints regarding the mobile field technology.
“We want to make sure that we’re doing everything in our power to keep progressing the job and moving it along. How can we become more efficient, how can we become bigger, better and faster so that we can continue to provide that quality of service to our customers–and PlanGrid is #1.”
Using Technology in Construction Operations
Whether a business is experiencing significant business growth or not, all construction companies at every business stage should take into consideration how mobile technology can improve their operations. Integrating technology into your operations can make the necessary improvements so a company can stay competitive and keep growing in the construction industry.
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