Breaking down silos and streamlining safety processes

The Challenge

Redhawk was drowning in software. They needed a collaborative one-stop solution that would break down silos and allow team members and subcontractors to access project data—without having to bounce around different software platforms to do so.

The Solution

Procore's cloud-based software and mobile apps centralized and automated collaboration between Redhawk's team members. Now the team can focus on managing their projects, not the software, which is allowing them to begin implementing best practices for quality, safety, and communication company-wide.

Choosing to work smarter

Prior to adopting Procore, Redhawk's main project management solution was Prolog. For everything else—field management, daily logs, submittals and RFIs—they were using Excel and Microsoft Outlook.

"One day our owner went to run a project. He logged into Prolog to create a change order and said there were multiple clicks and multiple screens to complete a single change order. He got very frustrated and called the Preconstruction Director, our Estimator, and our Project Manager into his office and said, 'This is ridiculous!' They laughed and agreed, 'Yes, we've been dealing with this for a few years now,'" said Senior Project Manager, Fred Reykdal.

Fred then searched through online reviews for a cloud-based solution that would eliminate the need to maintain a server or build a complex technology infrastructure. Reviews quickly led them to Procore and they were impressed by the ability to see the overall health of their projects in one glance and have intuitive workflows.

Teamwork: IT and Implementation Make Gains

Redhawk's team has come a long way since implementing Procore in 2012. The entire team, plus most of their subcontractors now use Procore for all of their projects. During the implementation process, Fred—who also serves as Redhawk's IT guru—worked with an implementation manager to help their team understand how Procore and Redhawk would work together.

"At first we started working with the project manager, the preconstruction director, myself, and the owner of the company. Once we really got the hang of it, we rolled it out to our superintendents and foremen."

Initially, field staff were both eager to learn the new software system and reluctant to get rid of their old systems. After seeing how easy Procore was, however, reactions quickly changed.

A simpler user experience

Redhawk has now successfully finished the implementation of Procore's mobile app out in the field and subcontractors are now actively using the system.

"Before Procore, we wouldn't get daily reports or field logs for weeks or sometimes ever," says Katy Browning, Redhawk's Quality and Safety Coordinator. "And when they did remember to send stuff, it was incomplete. Now, all of our supers, foremen, and field teams are using Procore's mobile app and it's really helped streamline our processes. For instance, we now have the ability to set up an RFI, take a picture, and shoot an email to our project executive."

Staying ahead of safety issues

Prior to using Procore, Redhawk heavily relied on paid safety consultants. Their in-house superintendents have always been very safety-conscious, but now they actually have the ability to properly implement quality and safety on their own.

Using the Inspections Tool, Katy is now able to walk the job on a weekly basis and work on keeping their job sites safer. "When I'm walking and talking with the Superintendent, being able to take pictures of everything and then attach them to the report when I get back to my office has been a tremendous help."

Currently, Redhawk is working on multiple hotels and apartment buildings. Managing so many units means redundancy in terms of pre punch list tasks and inspections. "That's why using Procore has been great. Our teams can easily complete inspections on their phone and then tell the PM what needs to be looked at and what happened today. It's been a really great tool for keeping the office and field teams in sync with each other," says Katy.

Happy owners, happy life

With Procore, owners are able to see contracts, change orders, RFIs and the submittal process. Katy admits that she is usually working on 100 things at once, so getting a few less requests from an owner in her inbox each day is helpful. "Since we've used Procore owners have had more access. With Excel, all they saw was the stuff that we provided to them—and only when they asked for it. Now they can jump into Procore at any time and check in on whatever they need to check in on."

The Procore Difference

Like many employees in a growing business, Katy wears many hats, so having everything in one central system has been beneficial for her and the whole team. Specifically, Procore's Drawings and Specification tools are putting dollars back in Redhawk's pocket in more ways than one.

"Misguided project dollars are not being spent in areas where they're not supposed to be", says Katy. "Erroneous building is not happening. Moving forward, we are building in a manner that makes sense versus building and then asking questions after."

Without the hassle of juggling multiple apps, Katy has more time for walking on the jobsite and completing safety inspections. She can respond to an RFI mid-walk while heading off to the next task on her list.

She no longer has to totally rely on outside quality and safety inspectors that are paid by the hour–saving Redhawk a full week of unnecessary billing each year.

So what's the best part of Procore? Katy thinks it's the continuing progress on the software. "We've been with Procore since drawings first rolled out. It was a good tool at first, but now it is great! 100 times better since it was first rolled out."

Procore software undergoes user feedback and crowdsourced development regularly. Katy has been a great champion of this progress and regularly contributes feedback and ideas on how to make the software work better—ultimately creating an easy-to-use product for everyone.