CASE STUDY L. F. Jennings CLIENT: L. F. JENNINGS CHALLENGE: Without a standardized project and document management system, the commercial general contractor found it difficult to maintain consistent, high-quality branding across all project reports presented to clients. This created a situation where the company’s work product varied between projects and between clients, and the company needed to find a solution to streamline the management teams’ time spent on creating and maintaining project documentation. SOLUTION: Procore’s cloud-based project management software has helped the company enhance its image by equipping project managers with a standard process for packaging and delivering project documents, management tools, and enforced standard procedures among other tools. An added benefit: the software also saves the company time and money by streamlining document management, printing, and distribution. GENERAL CONTRACTOR
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CASE STUDYL. F. Jennings
CLIENT: L. F. JENNINGS CHALLENGE: Without a standardized project and document management system, the commercial general contractor found it difficult to maintain consistent, high-quality branding across all project reports presented to clients. This created a situation where the company’s work product varied between projects and between clients, and the company needed to find a solution to streamline the management teams’ time spent on creating and maintaining project documentation. SOLUTION: Procore’s cloud-based project management software has helped the company enhance its image by equipping project managers with a standard process for packaging and delivering project documents, management tools, and enforced standard procedures among other tools. An added benefit: the software also saves the company time and money by streamlining document management, printing, and distribution.
L. F. Jennings Inc. has worked as a general contractor for high-quality commercial developments throughout the Mid-Atlantic region since 1952.
IN THE BUSINESS WORLD, BRANDING IS EVERYTHING
In L.F. Jennings’ case, the commercial construction company’s in-house document management system was hindering its ability to communicate the L.F. Jennings customer experience and brand of unparalleled quality, experience, and commitment.
L.F. Jennings believes that a company should have a consistent look, feel, and language—and stick to them. “We tried to maintain consistency throughout all projects, but before Procore, everyone had their own versions of documentation for logging and reporting information on projects,” says Kevin Nearpass, VP of Operations.
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The company relied on Microsoft Word and Excel documents to track projects. Team members retrieved document templates and company logos from a common folder. Since the templates were generic and contained basic entries, project managers would tweak the formats to make documents and logs better-suited for individual projects. They also had to insert company logos into the documents, which resulted in inconsistent branding. It was time to move beyond Word and Excel to a software solution specifically designed for construction project management.
“We needed to improve our image of professionalism,” explains Kevin. “We wanted all of our client-facing reports to have the same consistency and branding. It is also critically important that our teams see the benefit of this system to make their day-to-day tasks less paperwork heavy and allow them to concentrate on solving project-related problems and focus on construction planning and not document handling.”
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THE ROAD TO AN ENHANCED COMPANY IMAGE
L.F. Jennings began using Procore’s cloud-based project management software to generate uniform documentation that would be suitable for any construction project (no tweaking required). What’s more, the software incorporates the L.F. Jennings logo as a header within custom templates and transmittals, so it appears the same size, in the same position, and with the same color treatment on every document—for more consistent branding.
The company is also seeing big improvements in day-to-day operations, because it simply takes less time and money to manage projects using Procore:
Real-time access to project information: “Everyone is working from the latest information,” says Kevin. Daily logs, RFIs, submittals, change orders, photos, drawings, and more can be uploaded and immediately shared with all team members through the software. The most up-to-date data can be viewed by any team member with the right set of permissions and an Internet connection (via computer or mobile device).
Automated deadline notifications: “There’s no more searching Excel logs to see what has to be done,” says Kevin. “Plus, every time I log into a project through Procore, I can see what’s due within the next seven days—as well as what’s past due—right on the homepage.” Procore sends email notifications to both internal and external team members, including architects and subcontractors, reminding them of deadlines, approvals, RFI responses, etc.
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Faster document distribution. Sending drawings to subcontractors, for example, is quick and easy. Once a project is awarded, the project manager uploads the drawings to Procore and emails them to subcontractors through the software. It only takes a few seconds per drawing to number and title the drawing, and assign a discipline and date. Kevin notes, “That’s a huge time-saver.” Drawings and specs are available to anyone on the team with computer or mobile access, and subcontractors can download them straight from Procore.
Significantly reduced printing costs. “We no longer have to order paper-based drawings for each of our subcontractors, so instead of printing 40 sets of plans and specs, we now only have our office and field sets,” says Kevin.
Thorough as-built drawings. Procore enables project teams to mark up their working sets of drawings via mobile device and attach sketches and RFI responses. (Markups and changes are synced with the team automatically.)
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TRANSITIONING TO SOPHISTICATED SOFTWARE
Most L.F. Jennings staff members had never used construction management software, so the company approached implementation with intensive up-front planning and in-house training. “We went through a thorough process of determining how we were going to use the system and what files would be managed through Procore. That helped get everyone onto the same page,” says Brenda Jenkins, construction coordinator with L.F. Jennings.
Once we started using Procore, it only took one month for us I to see a big increase in time savings, says Brenda. Project managers soon began championing the system and taking the initiative to train other team members. Now, all projects are maintained through Procore.
By using Procore, L.F. Jennings staff members have been able to work and promote themselves and the company in a manner that better reflects the company’s brand and strengthens the company’s long standing reputation of providing the highest quality product in the marketplace. “We are providing a better, more consistent product for our clients and external team members, while at the same time allowing our project teams more time to focus on the task of being builders and not document developers” says Kevin.
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There’s no more
searching Excel
logs to see what
has to be done.
“
”Kevin NearpassVP of Operations
Procore Technologies, Inc.6309 Carpinteria Ave., Carpinteria, CA 93013
866-477-6267 // www.procore.com
Procore offers the most comprehensive construction platform, combining drawing, financial and quality management into one application. We’ve put the power of complete construction management into your hands with a mobile solution that keeps everyone in sync. Build collaboration from bidding to closeout with unlimited users, implementation assistance, online training, and unmatched customer support.
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