Managing the project instead of managing information

The Challenge

With more than 70 employees and projects in various phases of construction, Timberlake Construction needed to switch from antiquated business processes to an efficient project management system that would streamline, standardize, and boost efficiencies.

Based in Oklahoma, the national construction firm was growing steadily and needed a modern solution that would keep up with its growth. Business as usual was no longer acceptable. Too many project teams were wasting countless hours tracking down project information, working off outdated documents, and spending too much time on double entry. These inefficiencies inevitably led to rework and schedule delays.

The Solution

Timberlake Construction has been able to continue to grow their project team and they’ve found a solution that scales with them. Turnaround time on RFI’s and submittals has dramatically decreased, drawings are no longer manually updated, and workflows are streamlined.

Before Procore

Most of Cale’s days were spent tracking down information and then tagging the data.

"I was dealing with the RFIs and schedules which meant tracking a lot of back and forth between the architect and Timberlake," recalls Cale. "With our previous software, there was a lot of double entry and extra steps.

"It was as archaic as working in Excel. I might as well have tracked my submittals in a spreadsheet, recording exactly when I got them and when I sent them out," adds Cale.

After finding the needed project information, like drawings, Cale had to make sure the project team had updates to those drawings. He was constantly in the system reviewing and checking to make sure everyone was on the same page. Meanwhile, drawings were printed and marked up, but there was no documentation around discussions.

"Almost all communication was done through email, so it was really hard trying to backlog or load the information that was being exchanged through Outlook," remembers Cale.

Managing the Project Instead of Managing Information

When Timberlake made the transition to Procore, it enabled the project team to automatically track vital project information, a task that would previously have been entered manually. "I will get an email that will say, 'Hey, you've got something that should have been entered by now and it's going to be overdue,’" says Cale. "With Procore, you get a question or an issue, you type it up and send it out. All that information is tracked automatically. Those are the things that help me be more efficient with my time."

Cale quickly noticed how easy it was to enter, track, and file information in Procore. With Procore, he could stop managing information and start managing the project.

"At the end of a job, I can print an RFI log and show a full documentation of everything that has happened, as well as attachments and the way the issue has been solved," explains Cale. "We had no way of doing that before. It took me a lot of extra time to send out emails and then take those emails and upload them into the system."

Shorter Turnaround Times

Now that Timberlake is able to track communication, teams are held accountable and the turnaround time on email responses, RFIs, and submittals is significantly shorter.

"We leverage Procore's email functionality to respond to an RFI or attach documents. We would often see architects using a full seven days, or sometimes even longer, to get a response back to us. Now, we're seeing one- or two-day turnarounds," says Cale.

Before Procore, the Timberlake team had to print each set of drawings plus copies for each project manager, and then manually track all changes made to each drawing.

"We would have four sets of drawings in the job trailer at any time. So one of my jobs as an assistant project manager was to print any changes that had occurred that day and physically post them to the drawings," recalls Cale. "It was literally craft time: scissors, paper, and a glue stick. Having to manually update drawings leaves a large margin for errors, and it requires twice the amount of work to maintain four different sets of drawings."

With Procore, Timberlake has gone gone from an average of four sets of drawings in the job trailer down to one or two—cutting the paper consumption nearly in half.

"We carry a line item on our cost codes for reproduction. You can see the difference in how we budget our jobs now. With Procore, full-size sets have gone from a $5,000 line item to $1,000. That's a fifth of the cost in job site paper."

With Procore’s powerful project management system now driving Timberlake’s business processes, it’s project teams can now focus on what they do best—build.