Goal: Improve Photo Documentation for Conversations with GCs
As a full-MEP-T contractor, CEC Facilities Group frequently needs to show accurate jobsite conditions before starting work. Having thorough, easy-to-navigate photo documentation to quickly show GCs true site conditions became a high priority.
Ease of use was just as important as functionality, which CEC discovered in the process of vetting and implementing other construction technology solutions.
“Our field team’s time is valuable and anything new that we introduce needs to provide equivalent or exceptional value to our team. If there are a lot of steps involved using a piece of technology, the field teams will be reluctant to implement and continually use that tool/technology,” said Jared Peinado, Director of Project Controls at CEC.
Strategy: Use OpenSpace to Fully Document Each Jobsite 1X to 2X Per Week
CEC’s field teams have deployed OpenSpace on a wide range of projects to ensure that jobsite documentation is always fresh and up-to-date. Current projects include an 80-million-square-foot solar farm in a remote area of West Texas, where the team is responsible for making 2 million connections and putting in hundreds of thousands of zip ties in the course of daisy-chaining thousands of panel rows together.
Prior to using OpenSpace, the 10-person QA/QC team would have been taking photos with their phones of each connection in order to fulfill their inspection requirement. Now, they can simply strap a 360° camera to their hard hats and walk, allowing them to multitask as OpenSpace captures in the background and pins imagery to the project plan.
They can also use the Field Notes feature for punchlist items and to document instances where CEC’s work was accidentally damaged by other parties, or when areas of the site weren’t ready for them to begin. They simply take a picture and type a comment, and the image and text are automatically pinned to the plan, which is far easier than writing down an observation in a notepad and trying to remember what area of the site it pertains to later. They can also automatically generate reports with all the “tagged” items.
“This is huge for our QA/QC team,” said Peinado. ”It allows them to spend more time looking at things instead of worrying about paperwork.”
OpenSpace has also been leveraged on the renovation of the 350,000-square-foot Dallas County Records Building, which is a complicated project that entails joining three existing buildings from different decades. The team has also begun using OpenSpace on a large manufacturing plant for an industry-leading semiconductor company.
The accuracy and completeness of the documentation puts us in a strong position to defend ourselves against project delay allegations.
Results: Improved Collaboration and Relationship Management with GCs
By having QA/QC teams walk jobsites once or twice a week with OpenSpace, CEC can easily document their work for later discussions. The company is looking forward to piloting OpenSpace Track for progress tracking, which can facilitate pay applications and strengthen trust with GCs by accurately documenting what percentage of their scope of work has been completed day by day.
So far, OpenSpace has driven meaningful change in these areas:
Time savings: OpenSpace saves the QA/QC team a few hours every time they document a jobsite. It also makes them more productive, since they can multitask while doing site walks. The technology also saves time in the course of routine interactions with GC and other subcontractors. “When I can quickly pull up a photo and don’t have to spend three or four hours trying to respond to an email or a delay letter, that’s hugely valuable,” Peinado said.
Issue resolution and enhanced communication: CEC’s main use case for OpenSpace right now is reducing exposure to risk and improving communication with GCs. “The accuracy and completeness of the documentation puts us in a strong position to defend ourselves against project delay allegations,” Peinado said. By helping CEC prove that they weren’t the cause of the original delay, OpenSpace also puts CEC in a better position to request overtime if the GC is intent on speeding up delivery. It’s also useful in day-to-day interactions. For example, if the GC’s Project Manager says during a meeting that a certain area is ready for electrical, CEC can simply pull up a recent photo to demonstrate what remains to be completed—which gets everyone on the same page faster.
User experience: In the course of introducing OpenSpace to several teams, Peinado has found that it’s highly intuitive, even for older colleagues who aren’t highly tech-savvy. “It’s very easy to use no matter what your skill level is,” he said. Ease of use has been a key differentiator when comparing OpenSpace to other technologies. For example, while Matterport can be useful for providing as built conditions to a client during the handover process, it’s too complicated to be used for daily site documentation.
OpenSpace allows QA/QC teams to spend more time looking at things instead of worrying about paperwork.
