CHALLENGE

Few industries can rival the complexity, coordination, and documentation requirements of the commercial construction industry.  Whether it is managing contracts with dozens of subcontractors or tracking hundreds of potential cost impacts (PCIs), a project’s successful outcome and profitability are directly correlated to the documentation needed to support what was actually accomplished.  For Guido Construction, a $100 Million dollar commercial contractor in South Texas, growth and scale brought new challenges in standardization and documentation.

As our team expanded from less than 50 personnel to over 125, it became obvious we needed to standardize the way we manage projects and streamline our interaction with all stakeholders. In any given month we could have thirty or more active projects with different budgets, teams, and vendors and our management team needed a way to identify potential problems before they become risks to the project.

— Maryanne Guido, Chief Executive Officer

Previously Guido was leveraging Quantum, an Access based document generation tool - but they soon needed additional functionality.  “We looked at out-of-the-box software but it was too expensive.  Even SaaS based products like Procore can run over $20,000 USD just to format your documents!  We knew there had to be a better way to find / build and application that could fit our business and the way we do things.”

SOLUTION

Managing a $10 Million dollar project can be challenging - from Submittals to RFIs, ASIs to Potential Cost Impacts, approved Change Orders to Pay Applications, and punch lists to As-builts. With countless documents, stakeholders, and schedules to manage, the possibility for overlooking details is a real possibility.  Standardizing the project delivery process across multiple projects of various sized teams and differing experience levels can seem virtually impossible.

To bring structure and automation to the process, Guido construction engaged Kinetech to build Guido Project Management (Guido PM) - a white label, customized version of Kinetech PM.  At first Maryanne was skeptical, “How can a small team build and customize an enterprise application in a matter of weeks?” she said.  “When we began to iterate through the desired workflow I was blown away - Kinetech was literally updating and deploying the changes during our review sessions!”

When I saw the first iteration, I was very impressed with the user experience of the application and immediately knew we were going in the right direction. Then with new feedback, we could make important adjustments to the app very quickly and easily.

— Maryanne Guido, Chief Executive Officer

Since launching after only 8-weeks, the application has continued to evolve.  Now RFIs, ASIs, and Pricing Requests (PRs) can be linked to a Potential Cost Impact (PCI).  Drag and drop upload features for supporting documentation have been a huge hit with the team.  Guido has even leveraged Kinetech to build timekeeping functions for their shared carpenter and painting resources.  The next set of features the team is looking for is a ticketing system for service requests and a “Plan Room” for document distribution and tracking.

RESULTS

More than 30 project managers, subcontractors, architects, and owners access the application on a daily basis.  As a result, the Guido team spends less time generating submittal, RFI, and punchlist logs and more time solving problems.  “Having a single-point of record where everyone can collaborate and see how the project is progressing has been a game-changer; our bigger clients like Sea World love it!.” said Guido.

“It truly has been amazing the way our team has embraced the incremental iteration and evolution of the application.  By leveraging the “feedback tab” our team in the field continues to request functionality to improve our processes and Guido PM.  From a management perspective, because the software guides new hires and experienced personnel alike, we now have a dashboard that provides a 50,000 ft view of each project - something we never had before” said Guido.  “Whether I am traveling for work or visiting a job-site, I can quickly pull up ANY project, from ANYWHERE in the world and see what outstanding items the team is tracking.  If the average duration an architect takes to respond to our requests for information begins to creep up, we can alert the owner that their project is at risk BEFORE we fall behind schedule.  

“The transparency and accountability have already created a ROI that exceeded our most optimistic projections, but the flexibility to continue to innovate and experiment with additional services is what has us most excited about our partnership with Kinetech.  We’ve been in this business for almost 100 years, establishing relationships with diamond clients (San Antonio Spurs, the Museum of Art, the San Antonio Children’s Museum, the Witte, the McNay Art Museum) and trusted partners like Kinetech will help ensure our next 100 years of success.”