Mobile is here. Empower Your Team to New Heights
South Bay Framing needed a cloud-based project management solution to address three major areas for the company. It needed to be designed specifically for the Subcontractor doing the work versus a solution for other specialties, such as general contractors. Second, it needed to be cloud-based and affordable to use to minimize long-term operational and maintenance costs. Thirdly, it needed to empower field workers and office staff with an integrated project delivery system to speed up activities and decision making across the business. Critical functions such as change orders, RFl's, daily reports and payroll and cost data collection needed to be streamlined and easy to execute for users.
Client Challenges / eSUB Benefits
- Field Base Project Management - Removed technological and communication obstacles to enable field staff to make quicker decisions in the field.
- Change Orders - Antiquated manual processes replaced by real-time information sharing and responses, increasing accuracy and establishing trust with General Contractors, Owners and Architects.
- RFI Responses - Increased efficiency for responding to RFl's.
- Daily Reports - Eliminated manual/cumbersome steps to report to large General Contractor clients.
- Payroll Data Collection - What used to take a week, now takes minutes and reduces errors from duplicate data entry to increase accuracy and profitability.
Solutions And Benefits
Improving business practices was paramount in migration strategy
As the chief executive, improving business practices was paramount to selecting the right solution platform to migrate from using Dropbox and Excel files and Network directories in day-to-day practices. Another key initiative included implementing an easy-to-use system with extensive communication capabilities for the field and office to automate many processes throughout the project lifecycle.
//fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/nsop4r5r3l.jsonp//fast.wistia.com/assets/external/E-v1.jsAccording to Mike Dague, owner, South Bay Framing, ''Field Foreman and onsite worker adoption has been incredible since they are using Samsung tablets to run the easy-to-use eSUB platform in their daily project delivery activities. Our field staff have very diverse backgrounds, and some are not tech savvy, but there have been no complaints about the intuitive user interface, and robust capabilities the eSUB platform provides our team."
Managing Change Orders and Third-Party Relations more effectively.
For South Bay Framing, change orders are very specific to customers and General Contractors (GC) and vary widely from project to project. “Our GC’s deal with 15 different subcontractors on jobs, so after implementing eSUB, we were able to gain their immediate attention and build trust to collect faster approvals,” said Mr. Dague. “By accelerating this process, South Bay was able to increase profitability on each change order and minimize delays. Also, the general contractors and other third-parties we work with are now confident that South Bay Framing’s reports and submittals are accurate because of the system we use and its powerful feature set.”
eSUB, a security blanket in Construction Defect Litigation (CDL) & legal disputes?
Integrated Project Delivery
eSUB’s cloud-based project management platform offers the core technologies necessary to manage the entire project lifecycle, including:
eSUB is exclusively designed for subcontractors, which is what attracted South Bay Framing to purchase the software as a service (SaaS). “Other project management solutions are general contractor or accounting focused and require modifications that never really do what is intended. Having a cloud-based system with all documentation hosted in a single place provides our business with a crucial security blanket for historical purposes. In this day of construction defect litigation, we have access to all South Bay Framing documentation for years to come,” said Mr. Dague.
In the closing statement, the Labor Board stated they have never seen documents so well organized and prepared.
And, it’s already helped protect the company in a lawsuit. “Six months ago, South Bay Framing worked on a piecework project and unduly faced an $11,000 fine by the Las Vegas Review Board for a minimum wage dispute brought on by another subcontractor. When South Bay Framing appeared at the Labor Board hearing, the presented their daily reports generated in eSUB and the complaint was immediately dismissed. In the closing statement, the Labor Board stated they have never seen documents so well organized and prepared. In addition to the many benefits of finally having something for the field, eSUB provides South Bay Framing with a long-term security blanket,” said Mr. Dague.
Finally, There's Something for the field for South Bay Framing
- Real-time access to project data from any internet-connected device
- Consistent and auditable workflows and processes
- Improve field to office communications
- Reduce response times with instant notifications and alarms
- Increase efficiency and productivity of distributed teams
- Improve accountability with documentation, tracking and record keeping
- Reduce risk, rework and operational costs
- Increase ROI on every project
Related stories
