When Scott Builders Inc. of Red Deer, Alberta was looking for new software, one of the things that was critical to the company was to find a solution that would help it standardize its operations. Project managers and office staff previously used many different processes and systems for recording, analyzing and processing construction data, noted Murray Cunningham, Scott Builders’ chief operating officer, and those processes were not netting the desired results.

It was a really inefficient way of running things,” Cunningham said. “We had a collection of systems that didn’t always work well with each other and there were many times when our office staff and field staff were not seeing eye-to-eye with the information they had in front of them. When you have projects all throughout Western Canada and you’re moving the kind of data that we are, we just couldn’t afford to have errors and delays with our projects.”

Scott Builders picked Spectrum® Construction Software to be its complete construc-tion management solution — Cunningham noting that it allowed his company a much deeper view of the data from the accounting side, while providing a significantly more robust project management suite that gave project managers more control in the field.

“With the amount of information we’re now able to put into a project manager’s hands we have realized significantly increased productivity,” Cunningham said. “Before, we were using a number of different methods to shuttle information around, and we had all these rules and scenarios with what we could or couldn’t pay or what we could or couldn’t do without a project manager’s approval. Now it is very easy to run everything by the project manager. Documents are all scanned, data is digital, and it all goes through workflows, so PMs get to see everything that is happening on a project — all the costs, all the data and input in real time. It makes their projections better and the projects run smoother.”

Spectrum’s web-based platform opens access to everyone, whether in the office or on a remote jobsite. And when working remotely, users can access data online or work offline and sync to Spectrum when an internet connection is reestablished. Dallas Williams, general manager of Scott Builders’ Red Deer Office, said this has been key to streamlining the company’s operations. “There are lots of times where we are working in a remote location and have to access data that we couldn’t have before without being in the office. Now, we can look over project information on site, make changes, pay bills — everything — because the information is there at our fingertips,” Williams said. “We can now do the sort of detailed, on-site analysis we could never have done before the cloud and before Spectrum.”

Spectrum’s Dashboard and the intuitive Info Bar make Spectrum easy to use. Cunningham said that has made it easier for more people in the company to easily access and make sense of data. “We had a very good buy in by our employees,” he said. “And we have folks that are really experienced and are showing us even more new things we can do in Spectrum.”

Spectrum has a full suite of project management functionality — including Spectrum’s Plan Room, pre-bid management tools and unified Project Log. Both Cunningham and Williams noted that a commitment to improving companies’ project management capabilities was a key selling point when choosing Spectrum.

“We’re just scratching the surface of Spectrum’s project management capabilities, right now.” Williams said. “I’m excited for what it will be able to help us do in the future.”