McKinstry sees a brighter, cleaner future with Procore

The Challenge

McKinstry, an MEP design-build contractor providing ESCO performance services, needed to get organized. Getting anything done often required checking with multiple team members who may or may not have the answer. With no project management software in place, the company relied on spreadsheets and emails to keep track of vital data, a leaky, inefficient system that created siloes, impeded progress and frustrated team members.

The Solution

After multiple failed attempts with other software, McKinstry found success with Procore. Working with Procore Professional Services, McKinstry took time to configure the software to its exact needs and perform on-site walkthroughs in which employees could ask questions and receive training. After so many false starts, Procore proved to be the one platform that achieved universal adoption across the company and helped drive true digital transformation.

The Results

• Increased efficiency by streamlining interactions with contractors and external partners across project management
• Faster decisions and quicker closeouts with a single source of truth, reducing delays and improving project timelines
• Achieved company-wide adoption with ease of use, lifting morale and minimizing friction across the entire team

A technology solution the entire company can agree on

McKinstry is an MEP and ESCO specialty contractor that specializes in eco-friendly retrofits of public buildings across the US. Based in Seattle, the company prides itself on solving problems for clients, eliminating the barriers that stand in the way of building smarter, healthier and more sustainable environments.

Without any construction management software in place, McKinstry struggled to solve many of its own problems. Relying on emails, spreadsheets and individual employees to keep track of critical information resulted in an overall lack of efficiency and sagging morale. Safety information was typically kept in a single, overstuffed binder on site that was not always accurate or up to date. For two years, the company tried adopting at least four other software solutions, but none achieved widespread adoption, partly due to a resistance to technology and a commitment to obsolete processes among some employees.

When Matt Ophardt, a Senior Standardization Program Manager, was tasked with bridging the gap between IT and the rest of the business, he concluded Procore was the best fit — but left nothing to chance. Working with Procore Professional Services, Ophardt spent three months planning, preparing and configuring Procore to McKinstry’s precise needs. “We took the time to think through each tool and customize it to the way we run our projects, then showed our field teams exactly how they were going to use it,” he says. “They could see right away that it wasn't really going to be that different — it was just going to optimize what they were doing.”

The result was “fairly instantaneous adoption across most of our projects,” says Ophardt. It helped that team members saw immediate payoff. “Procore optimizes the communication with both customers and subcontractors, and that was the most difficult thing we were struggling with.” With all information in one central location, individual project managers and engineers were able to run their projects without checking in with other employees, helping them communicate with specialty contractors faster so they could move on to other tasks. “Procore has helped us gain efficiencies in all aspects of project management, which helps us get all our projects to close out faster,” Ophardt shares.

Better communication breeds happier employees, partners and customers

As communication has improved, so have the working relationships among McKinstry employees and its partners. “Our subcontractors and customers love using Procore with us, because they face the same struggles we do in terms of communication and focusing on the goals of the project,” says Ophardt. “Having that all in one location in Procore helps all of us do better.”

That newfound coordination even helped retain a key McKinstry engineer. As the person responsible for reviewing submittals, this engineer would become upset when the lack of organization prevented him from confirming their status or priority level. “He felt like he was letting too many people down, and almost left McKinstry because of it,” says Ophardt. “Procore helped him organize that and deliver better to his coworkers, and he is still with us today.”

Overall, the improvements brought about by Procore have lifted morale across the company and made McKinstry a more efficient and exciting place to work. “Procore has definitely helped improve the lives of people at McKinstry,” says Ophardt.

Tools built for construction, by construction

Why did Procore succeed where so many other solutions had failed? Because it was built by people who understand construction, says Ophardt. “We've purchased other software where it became clear that the people selling it had acquired a company or built a tool without quite understanding how it would be used,” he says. “That's completely the opposite experience we’ve had with Procore. They understand how we use it and what we need it to do.”

“It is night and day how we can communicate with our partners and work internally on our projects” Ophardt continues. With Procore in place, McKinstry is spending less time searching through emails and spreadsheets and more time focusing on its important work. “It’s made us so much more digital and connected, with a path to being even more so, that we're excited about the future.”