CASE STUDYXL Construction

CLIENT: XL CONSTRUCTION CHALLENGE: A large volume of project documents proved difficult to manage efficiently. SOLUTION: Implementing Procore as a single process keeps communications organized, enables collaboration and prevents costly errors.

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CASE STUDY XL CONSTRUCTION

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CASE STUDY XL CONSTRUCTION

ESSENTIAL FOR HANDLING BIG PROJECTS

XL is currently building a large project for Clorox in Pleasanton, California.

“We’re using Procore right now for our Clorox Project, a 360,000 S.F. campus, and

there is an incredible amount of information flying back and forth,” Newland says. “It

would be extremely difficult to track, store and communicate all of this information

without a tool like Procore. The most important uses of Procore, in terms of a large

project, are RFIs, Submittals, and Documents. We have six buildings on four separate

contracts and different teams managing them, but we all meet with the same owner,

bring the same logs, and structure the documents in the same way. The fact that we

can generate this information from Procore means that it all looks the same and it’s

always updated. That’s huge.”

“As a Project Engineer it normally falls to me to update the logs. When you keep all of

the RFI and Submittal logs in Excel, you can find yourself making last minute updates

before the Owner’s meeting and scrambling a bit,” Newland explains. “With Procore,

you just hit ‘Print to PDF’ and head into the meeting.”

“Procore helps us make sure that our teams have the latest information, are able to

get us the responses we need, and, most importantly, that nothing is missed that

may cause issues on the Project,” says Newland. Rather than emailing new sets of

drawings or documents to subs, and then following up to ensure they got them,

Procore offers a simplified method with a high level of accountability and tracking.

“The fact that I sent it from Procore is tracked,” Newland explains. “I can see who

has downloaded it. This allows me to check a few days after upload and see who has

gotten it,. Then I know who I need to follow up with. It saves time.”

XL Construction is a commercial general contractor, based in California’s Bay Area, that specializes in the construction of data centers, offices, laboratories, biotechnology and healthcare facilities—for big-name clients like Apple, Clorox, Genentech, Google, HP, and Kaiser Permanente.

When XL began looking for an online project management tool their criteria was that

it facilitate an organized, collaborative approach that would keep everything in one

place and allow all stakeholders to have access to current project information at any

point in time.

“We wanted something that would really put an online collaboration component into

our business. Something that would be easier and better not only for ourselves, but

also for our clients, architects, engineers and subcontractors because everything is

stored and tracked in one place,” Newland explains. Over the years, Newland has

been part of a lot of decisions at XL about software and finding the right tools. “I did

an in-depth search looking for the right online collaboration tool and came down to

four options. After exploring them all further, Procore came out on top.”

In XL’s comparison between Procore and other available solutions, “it came down

to the high level of features, ease of use, and cost,” Newland explains. He found

Procore’s flat annual licensing cost structure particularly attractive—and simple. “A lot

of other solutions charged based on seats. When you have to think about seats and

how many people you want to have access to the project, and then how many people

they want to have access,” he says, “that really gets in the way. So the cost was right

and, really, the cost structure was right.”

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KEEPING TABS ON RFIS AND MORE“The collaboration aspect is what we are really trying to achieve for all the teams that we work with, and the added accountability has definitely been helpful as well,” says Newland. Procore has made it simple to see where things stand and exactly where in the process a particular document is.

For XL, Procore “helps with turnaround times on RFIs and submittals, because everything’s so easy to find and it’s clear when the ball is in your court, so you know when you need to take action,” Newland says.

Newland has found that XL’s clients benefit from having access to Procore as well, as it allows them to easily stay up-to-date. “They can access Procore at any moment and see what RFIs or submittals are outstanding, see what’s happening on site, and search the Documents tab for any drawing that has been generated throughout the entire history of the design process,” he says. “On my current project, I have a year and a half of design iterations on the Documents tab for the entire campus, every revision of trade specific 3D models from the clash detection effort, and gigabytes of other data that the team wanted to have stored in a central repository. It helps us keep track of an incredible amount of documentation.”

“Another feature that has really helped us is the Daily Log Tab,” Newland says. “We have a lot of clients that ask that we tell them exactly how many man-hours we worked each month. Before Procore, this was a difficult process. Now we do our daily logs on Procore, and I can run a report with one click and filter for the month and know exactly how many hours were worked. In addition to tracking man-hours worked for reporting purposes, it aids in discussions with subcontractors who may be falling behind on-site. You can have a report in two minutes with the number of men working and descriptions of what they did each day for a particular contractor and whatever time frame you like.”

XL doesn’t only use Procore for its big projects, though,” says Newland. “We’ll use Procore on a $50 million project and we’ll use it on a $1 million one. It’s very scalable.”

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‘IT WAS JUST EASY’When XL Construction first started using Procore, Newland was impressed by its ease of use. “It was just easy, and everyone was able to pick it up. I never had to write a how-to manual for it. Even our subs were able to get on and use it without much trouble. I was actually surprised by how well it was received by the project teams; everyone really liked it,” he says.

“What was great about it is you don’t need a whole lot of setup,” Newland recalls. “You can quickly create a project, put some people in the directory and go –that’s it. You’re up and running in 10 minutes!”

XL took a gradual approach to implementation because they wanted to ensure that it was the right solution for the overall company. “Initially we implemented on one pilot project, and after seeing success with Procore, rolled it out on a second and a third. By that time the majority of the project teams wanted to use it and it quickly became a company-wide solution.”

One big concern at the outset was whether XL was going to have to change its way of doing business to fit the software. “When you buy an off-the-shelf software instead of creating something yourself, the question is whether you’re going to have to change your business model to accommodate that software. We didn’t have to do that with Procore. We were able to set it up to take what we do now and enhance it, without having to change it.”

“Procore is very flexible,” Newland explains. “A lot of other systems are more rigid in their processes.” With Procore, XL was able to set customizable options to tailor it to the company’s needs – things like how many e-mail notifications get sent out for which triggers, who gets what level of access to certain tabs, and so on. “We were able to configure it to closely match our business processes,” says Newland.

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We’ll use Procore on a $50 million

project and we’ll use it on a $1

million one. It’s very scalable.

“”

Josh NewlandSenior Project Manager

SUPPORT AND ACCESSIBILITYProcore normally integrates training into its solutions at no extra charge, but Newland found that XL didn’t require that extra service. “I did the main training and implementation, and those that I had trained had no problem teaching their project teams how to use it.” That reflects how easy to use Procore is. But he notes that his Procore account manager was always available by phone and responsive if he had any questions.

XL was an early adopter of Procore. Newland admits, “when we got it years back, it wasn’t quite as developed as it is now. I did find a handful of issues.” But he was impressed with the way the Procore team handled them. “If I called up, there was always immediate attention to any legitimate bug that I found, and things were always fixed within a couple of days. So the support from the team, the accessibility to all levels of Procore management, and how receptive Procore was to enhancement requests was a major plus.”

Newland recommends Procore to clients and others looking for a project-management solution. “For all the reasons that I mentioned before, it does everything that you want it to do, and it does it well. It’s very easy to use, and it’s the right price.” By the time people call him, they’ve usually compared Procore with the same competitive products he’s looked at, so he can comfortably tell them how Procore compares. “With the comparative solutions that are out there, it really does the job the best.”

Procore Technologies, Inc.6309 Carpinteria Ave., Carpinteria, CA 93013

866-477-6267 // www.procore.com

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