Driving collaboration in ambitious construction projects

The Challenge

Hathaway Dinwiddie had lofty ambitions — but like many builders, they were faced with misalignment of teams, process inefficiencies, and a changing business landscape. To achieve their goals, they needed to connect their teams and drive productivity from pre construction through post-construction, across their entire project portfolio.

The Solution

To find the right platform, they created a team of twenty-three people to evaluate options. After a detailed comparison of five final candidates, the team chose Procore — both for its comprehensiveness and its commitment to continual innovation and improvement.

The Results

• Enhanced cross-functional collaboration through a single platform, improving teamwork and productivity across the organization
• Empowered data-driven decisions by providing easy access to accurate information from past and present projects
• Adapted to evolving needs with continuous updates and new features in Procore's platform to meet emerging challenges

Pushing the Limits of Design and Architecture

Hathaway Dinwiddie, a general contractor operating primarily in California, has been in business for over a century. It has created a number of notable local and regional landmarks — including the Ronald Reagan Library’s Air Force One Pavilion, which houses not a replica, but the actual Boeing jet that served Reagan and six other presidents.

Hathaway Dinwiddie didn’t shy away from the unusual challenge of transporting the aircraft to the site and building the structure around it. In fact, such challenges are par for the course for the company, which strives to create groundbreaking, iconic architecture that fulfills its mission of “Inspiring Possibilities.”

“Our 2020 goal was to build 20 iconic buildings in 20 years,” says John Cowles, Hathaway Dinwiddie’s Senior VP and COO. “So we were looking for a tool that would help us deliver a highly collaborative environment for successful construction. We settled on Procore and have never looked back.”

Unifying Collaboration on a Single Platform

Hathaway Dinwiddie is known for high stakes, high visibility projects — that means low margins for error. Disparate systems that disrupt alignment and paper plan-based processes prone to version control failures had always strained those margins. Procore was the answer.

As Cowles puts it, “Iconic projects require a lot of communication and collaboration. A platform like Procore allows us to distribute information seamlessly.”

Procore puts essential documents like drawings, plans, and contracts in a single, easily accessible location — and connects the entire workforce. Built by construction for construction, it’s a comprehensive platform, fueling collaboration between every team member — whether they work in the office or in the field, whether they’re managing a project or the business.

“It's not just a single app or a single program,” Cowles says. “It covers our RFIs and submittals. But it also works on our safety program, our quality program, and our financials. It permeates all aspects of the business.”

Data that Does the Work

With Hathaway Dinwiddie’s goal to deliver 20 iconic projects in 20 years, they need the right data at every turn — whether they’re looking to answer questions from ownership or make decisions on the jobsite. Procore gives the right people access to the data they need — and the tools to make sense of it.

Cowles explains, “Procore allows us to collect and align our data and actually visualize that data. It tells us a complete story, and we can relay that story to the owner in terms they can understand.”

Having the right data at the right time in the hands of the right people, enables teams to move confidently from pre construction through construction, without surprises. And gathering new data along the way empowers the platform to provide even better guidance on future projects with similar profiles, from material costs to timetables.

But again, Procore is a comprehensive platform, serving the whole business. The impact of its data storage and visualization capabilities isn’t limited to the jobsite — because the challenges construction faces aren’t limited to just the jobsite.

For instance, as the industry grapples with a large retiring population and the liability of lost institutional knowledge, capturing that knowledge and translating it into training for the next generation is crucial. Cowles explains, “You know, transferring a person's legacy. Documenting it through AI and data and being able to really pass it to the next generation and the next generation and the next generation — a way to pull experience out of people's heads and put it into the computer in such a way that it becomes an asset — Procore really can step into that gap.”

Partners in Innovation

All in all, Hathaway Dinwiddie knew they needed to transform their operation. To do that, they needed a tool designed by people who understood every aspect of the construction industry — where it is now, and where it’s going in the future. After all, a retiring workforce isn’t the only new challenge the construction world will face — and Cowles knows his team needs to be ready to adapt to whatever comes next.

“Our core values say it all: if you can make it better, make it so,” he explains. “Procore is really aligned with us on that. They’re looking to the future. They’ve got very aggressive and wide-ranging maps on improvement, and they have a great customer base that helps guide them. I don’t know of any other software company out there that does what Procore is doing right now.”