Improving customer service by digitizing project processes

The Challenge

Kahn Mechanical, a family run full-service mechanical contractor based in Dallas, Texas, has been committed to client satisfaction for over 40 years. They wanted to improve the way they managed their projects and financials to better serve their customers.

The Solution

Eager to digitize their project processes, Kahn’s leadership sought out the right software for the job. They chose Procore to solve their project management challenges, and soon found Levelset to address their struggles with lien rights and financial risk management.

The Results

• Digitized project information allowed Kahn to consistently exceed customer expectations and enhance overall satisfaction
• Procore offered a scalable platform that adapted to Kahn's growing needs, ensuring long-term operational success
• Centralized processes enabled the entire team to access accurate information, improving collaboration and project efficiency

Kahn Mechanical Uses Procore to Overcome Change and Uncertainty

Since 1974, Kahn Mechanical has been a family owned and operated business. The mechanical contractor has become a well-established name in Texas not only because of its high-quality work, but also because the company has never stopped striving to treat its customers with the utmost respect.

Ann Kahn, the first woman in the state of Texas to hold an air conditioning license, assumed the lead of the company as President in 1989. From then on, her mission centered on the importance of doing intelligent business and upholding Kahn's values. In January 2020, her son and daughter-in-law, Josh and Charlotte Kahn, took over the business, bringing with them degreed business management credentials and a combined 50 years of experienced leadership.

Shortly after Josh took over as CFO of the company, they were hit with a series of challenges stemming from COVID-19 and the tumultuous economic conditions affecting the construction industry. These issues stemming from a global pandemic and materials and labor shortages forced Josh to rethink how Kahn was doing business.

Josh realized his team spent too much of their energy on administrative tasks and lacked the time to focus on managing their projects and staying on top of critical items including labor forecasting, tracking change orders, managing lien rights, and keeping projects on schedule. Kahn’s reliance on outdated, manual processes and systems exacerbated their challenges. “We were performing our work with many hand-built systems,” says Josh. “We became masters of the Word document and spreadsheet, but there are only so many Word documents and spreadsheets that can take the place of a consistent project management system.”

Josh knew it was time to make significant changes to digitally transform the business. Starting with project organization, he began a vetting process of construction management software solutions. Ultimately, he chose Procore, based in part on his team’s experiences using it as a collaborator.

Depending upon the project, Kahn may be the general contractor, first-tier specialty contractor, or second-tier specialty contractor, so the software they selected had to be flexible to align with Kahn’s role on any given job.

“One theme we saw was that construction management software seemed to be heavily leaned toward either general contractors or specialty contractors, and didn’t seem to straddle and serve both,” Josh discovered as he evaluated software “We are often a first-tier specialty contractor, and we are often a prime contractor. When we evaluated all the products, I saw that Procore solved those two needs for us.”

Procore Digitizes Kahn’s Project Management

With a history of being forward thinking, Kahn Mechanical’s technology and innovation have been key ingredients to their success. Their need for constant development is largely based on the complex work they do and their client expectations. “We're a specialty trade mechanical contractor. We specialize in simply improving difficult environments. We do very, very difficult projects, requiring a tremendous amount of agility” says Josh. An example of Kahn’s detailed, painstaking work is the most recent remodel of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Terminal A.

Kahn needed a construction management software solution that not only met the needs of today but would grow with them into the future. As Josh considered Procore for his business he realized the software would push them to continue to evolve. “It appeared to me that we would be stretching our processes to be as good as the software as opposed to the other way around. Many software packages we have bought over the decades have required us to bend the software to work with our way of doing things in order to be functional. But I felt like Procore’s software has actually enticed us to up our game.”

For Kahn, Procore was the scalable solution they’d been searching for. Not only did it solve their current needs, but its flexibility also allowed the business to look into integrations that helped further fuel their success.

Streamlining Lien Rights with Levelset

Although Kahn now had Procore to solve their project management struggles, the team still needed to find a lien rights and financial risk solution. With Texas' complex lien rights laws, tracking, creating, and sending the correct documents containing accurate information was a difficult process., “Sometimes we would even miss sending waivers altogether. I mean, I think it was pretty haphazard. It was just kind of the Wild West,” Josh recalls about their lien waiver process. This led to missed waivers, inaccuracies in paperwork, delays in payments from clients, and endless headaches.

That’s when Kahn discovered Levelset, a Procore Company. Recently acquired by Procore, Levelset streamlines financial management for contractors like Josh. When the team at Kahn saw the power of Procore with Levelset, it was “an obvious choice,” says Josh. Finally, there was a solution for their financial risks. The acquisition means it’s simpler than ever for Kahn’s team to protect their finances.

Levelset helps contractors and suppliers get payment under control, facilitating smooth payments and successful projects. The lien rights management platform within Levelset helps specialty contractors protect lien rights, track deadlines, file paperwork, and ensure on-time payment on every project.

Since they started using Levelset,  Kahn is “100% on time with owner notifications and 100% compliant with obtaining full releases from vendors and subcontractors in support of well-paying clients,” according to Josh. With Procore, including Levelset, Kahn has successfully digitized and streamlined their most challenging processes.

Whether facing nonpayment after accidental failure to protect the company’s lien rights or having to invest more time, energy and money into a project due to missed steps, the team at Kahn used to face significant hiccups in their processes. Now, with the help of Procore, including Levelset, Josh and his team receive real-time alerts for project and financial matters on every job.

"I know that Procore with Levelset is providing us better project consistency — and project consistency means that we're not skipping critical steps,” says Josh. “By following all of the steps we're having far less instances of rework and inappropriate construction. We're doing it right the first time and ensuring we get paid for the work we've done."

Procore + Levelset Provide Peace of Mind for Kahn

By combining Procore and Levelset, Kahn has full 360 degree control of project cashflow. Procore’s financial management solutions give Kahn the visibility into real-time job costing and projections, which in-turn creates accurate billings. When projects are synced between Procore and Levelset, lien waivers and notices are sent and requested automatically, eliminating double entry. This is truly a 1+1=3 scenario.

Before implementing Procore at Kahn, Josh recalls the company “had to thread constantly and get data in the right folders,” but now, “Procore does the organization of the data more logically, much faster, and much, much more cleanly.”

Procore’s acquisition of Levelset allows the team to send notices and waivers to each project’s document library, expedite the “review-and-respond” process for subcontractors and suppliers, and quickly find project commitments and owner invoices. “Protect your lien rights. Levelset just takes all the thinking out of it. It just makes it simple,” says Josh.

With Kahn’s projects significantly more organized and all of their data stored in a cloud-based platform, everybody in the company has access to accurate information at the same time. This has had a powerful, positive impact on the timeliness and quality of their work, letting the team at Kahn continue their legacy of customer satisfaction.