For some time, Form had been trying to write an internal project management standard and manual primarily to enhance the tracking of its quality and safety standards and help accelerate its close out on construction projects. Due to various work commitments for key decision-makers, the project faced regular interruptions and was never completed.
For Carl Newman, Systems and Compliance Advisor, this meant that whenever the company set up a new project, he needed to print out documents manually. He also had to set up an electronic file structure to ensure the correct transfer of checklists and documents.
Form implemented Project Management in early 2019 to resolve its document management challenge, but the team soon realised Procore would support a myriad of best practice outcomes. It could help improve Form’s quality and safety benchmarks, standardise digital processes and provide greater transparency for staff emails. Greater transparency meant projects would no longer be interrupted when staff transferred to new sites or left the company.
“Procore automates tasks and monitoring in real-time, helping to give us a much clearer indication of what we need to be focusing on,” said Sarah.
“We initially implemented Procore to support better document management. Now, Procore is the backbone of our company-wide project management and quality assurance system. We have removed manual processes and helped deliver new efficiencies with a single digital platform and streamlined our way of operating.”
Sarah Ross
Business Improvement Manager
“It was relatively simple having our site teams get used to Procore. We set up Procore to mirror our project management approach as closely as possible, and this meant we didn't have to make too many changes to the way our team worked,” said Carl.
Sarah added: “It’s been good moving our team away from error-prone manual processes into digital systems that help them do their job better.”
Nowadays, Form relies on Quality & Safety to automate and measure quality outcomes in real-time and react to changes as required. The flexibility of the Procore system offers two processes for measuring quality within the business.
The first solution is a list of questions guiding the project manager towards an outcome that matches the physical build to the initial design standard. The second option relates to more specific jobs and is a customised Quality Assurance cheat sheet, instructing project managers and asking for evidence to support the recommendations.
“With Procore Quality & Safety, it’s easier to track QA across the business on a week-by-week or month-to-month basis. We often find if QA drops off, the risks on a project increase, and this means we can see it and act on it straight away,” said Carl.
The integration of Procore and SignOnSite is automating more accurate site hour records now, saving time and providing better insight into incident reporting.
“With Procore, we have a tool to review incident data and see what is taking place and on which site. We no longer have to manipulate and report that data. Instead, it appears on a dashboard and can be exported to a report for wider review. And it looks the same whether it’s a project in Auckland, Bay of Plenty, or Waikato,” explained Carl.
Procore saved Form further time with integration to its financial software. “Procore remains very open to integrations that help our business,“ Sarah said.
Procore’s central platform has delivered a single line of communication for Form, proving to be beneficial as New Zealand entered into lockdown with the onset of COVID-19—and again a few months later for the Auckland region.
“Procore followed our project teams home essentially, keeping our systems in place. We knew we had accurate, critical documentation as our project teams were reading from the right set of drawings and accessing the most up-to-date information. This gave us greater control and accuracy of project documentation when lockdowns lifted, and we were back on site,“ said Carl.