How Keen Project Solutions drives change, efficiency, and safety

The Challenge

Keen Project Solutions is a full-service engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) company based in Ankeny, Iowa, that serves the agricultural industry. Even in its early days, Keen could see the writing on the wall: the company was growing fast, and if it was going to continue expanding, it needed a better way to manage projects, communicate, track financials and, most importantly, drive positive change and innovation in the construction industry.

The Solution

As a company that values innovation, Keen wanted a partner that was equally committed to using data and technology to drive change and protect workers. Keen also liked that most of the owners they worked with were already familiar with Procore and thought highly of firms that used it. Procore provided the tools that Keen needed to stay ahead of the curve, protect their seat at the table and stay true to its founding principles of relationships, goals,innovation and people.

The Results

• 1,000 hours, on average, saved per user annually, allowing Keen’s team to focus on high-value tasks
• 173 hours saved per user annually through real-time financial data, helping control costs efficiently
• Safety metrics provide insight into vulnerabilities, ensuring proactive changes to keep workers safe

Preparing for success with a like-minded partner

Founded in 2014, Keen Project Solutions has grown rapidly by serving the needs of farmers and food manufacturers across its home state of Iowa and throughout North America. It’s a winning formula built on Keen’s four Guiding Principles: Build Relationships, Focus on End Goals, Drive Innovation and Protect People.

From the beginning, Keen looked for ways to avoid the pitfalls of other construction companies that grew too fast. “We're a growing company, but we want to grow smart,” says Abbey Johnson, Senior Project Coordinator. “We want to do it intentionally.” That meant controlling costs, driving efficiencies, streamlining communication, putting the safety and wellbeing of its people first and always staying at the forefront of industry innovation.

Keen knew it would be impossible to achieve those goals without a central management platform. When deciding which one to use, the company let its goals and principles be the guide. “Procore and Keen both have a desire to drive change in the construction industry and be innovative,” says Johnson. And the decision has made all the difference. “We use Procore for everything from project management to quality, safety and financials, and it adds so much value to our delivery. We just simply wouldn't have been able to scale to where we are now if we hadn’t set ourselves up for success with Procore.”

The kind of efficiency that improves lives

Of the many benefits to working with Procore, efficiency might be at the top of the list for Keen’s employees. And with good reason: Keen on average saves 1,084 man-hours per user every year through the platform. That saves on labor costs, and it saves workers from having to waste time on repetitive busy work. “The number of manual processes that are immediately taken out by utilizing Procore software is unmatched,” says Johnson.

It’s a difference that Johnson personally noticed during her earliest days with the firm. “As a new hire, if you have to log into 12 different software platforms, it’s really hard to figure out the process and get into any kind of routine,” she says. “But Procore is a one-stop-shop that integrates with so many different softwares, which makes that onboarding experience so much more streamlined. You don't have to log into DocuSign separately to send out a contract. You just sync through Procore and it does it all for you, and it saves a lot of time.”

One of the most significant ways Keen is finding new efficiencies with Procore is better coordination. With every key document stored on the platform and uploaded to its particular project, workers spend less time tracking down the latest version of that contract, drawing, safety plan or change order, practically eliminating the risk of someone working on an out-of-date document.

“We don't have to create miscellaneous calls or distractions about information that can easily be gathered,” adds Adam Aljets, a Keen Senior Project Manager.

By reducing wasted man hours, Keen is not only able to save money, it can take better care of its employees’ physical and mental wellbeing, says Aljets. “Employees can use that extra time to focus on their actual jobs or to just get out of the office,” he says. “Sometimes it's moving on to the next task and then sometimes it's, ‘Hey, I get to go home early and see my family.’”

“Procore has absolutely improved the lives of people at Keen,” says Aljets.

The financial insights to control costs

On average, Keen saves approximately 173 hours per user annually on financial management. But when it comes to finances, the benefits to Keen of working with Procore go beyond efficiency. Procore integrates with Keen’s ERP, Sage 300, giving the company detailed insight into project finances in real-time and the ability to tightly control costs on every project.

For example, Keen project managers always know their current labor costs on a project, because their budgets are instantly updated every time payroll is processed. For a company with a lot of cost-plus-fee arrangements, that information can spell the difference between success or failure on a project. And with Procore, those same up-to-the-minute financials can be shared instantly with anyone on the team, driving greater cost-awareness throughout the company. “The ERP integration has been incredible in terms of keeping track of project financials for superintendents, project managers, project engineers, project coordinators, whoever it is on the team,” says Aljets.

Procore also gives the Keen team access to data and analytics they can use to make deeply detailed reports. “We create a monthly budget projection update that we can share with the owner so we can all see how we’re tracking in real time,” says Aljets. With that information in hand, decisions about making changes or adding costs are streamlined and simplified, reducing potential points of friction and improving relationships with owners.

The team also relies heavily on Procore’s out of the box reports, which can be customized to include everything from labor costs to superintendents’ logs to equipment delivery status and more. “Without Procore, it would take hours to build those kinds of reports,” says Johnson, “But Procore does a great job of making it easy.”

Turning safety into data

Keen is using Procore to improve safety in several key areas. In addition to using Procore’s inspection tool to standardize and perform safety checks, Keen uses the platform for all its incident reporting, and daily logs help the company make sure everyone on site is pre-qualified. With all that data stored in the system, it’s simple for Keen to create metrics for analyzing its safety performance through Procore Analytics and see where improvements can be made. “It lets us talk about how we’re trending safety-wise, where the risks are right now and what trainings we can do to protect people,” says Aljets.

“Procore Analytics has allowed Keen to create a better safety culture , because we can see good data and harvest good lessons to address pain points,” says Johnson.

“Definitely worth what it costs”

For a company that wants to grow purposefully and always stay at the cutting edge of industry innovation, Keen is proud of its decision to partner with Procore early on. In many ways, the company views it as an investment, both in Procore as a partner and in Keen as an industry leader. “Procore is definitely worth what it costs,” says Johnson. “If it weren’t for Procore, we would be doing a lot more things manually, we wouldn't have real-time data to make informed decisions, and project managers wouldn't know where they were financially.”

Ultimately, Procore works for construction companies like Keen, says Johnson, because it’s built by people who know the business. “Procore has a lot of people that have been in the industry, and it was built for the industry,” she says. “It really helps them solve and provide solutions for Keen quicker than any other software company would be able to.”