Tri-Star Construction Increases Punch Walk and RFI Efficiency by 75% with Fieldlens by RedTeam
Tri-Star Construction Pty Ltd, a private South African construction company, covers builds from major commercial construction projects to high-rise residential and low cost housing. With over 448 projects completed and 43,500 homes built, Tri-Star’s construction teams have a demanding schedule and needed an easy-to-adopt solution that’d help them with fast and accurate communication while keeping all project team members accountable.
Currently, the team is working on a 3-year commercial project for the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg that encompasses multiple new buildings and refurbishments. Included is the refurbishment of the Wits Digital Dome, the largest Planetarium of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa. Soon to start is construction of the Wits School of Arts Rooftop Studio. Outside of the Wits framework projects, Tri-Star is currently handling an 8-level student housing development, the refurbishment of the entrance to the Faerie Glen Life Hospital and various other projects managed by different Tri-Star teams. To work on massive projects like these, the team needed to invest in new technology that helps them move faster with their RFIs and punch walks.
The challenge
Tri-Star was constantly faced with an inefficient flow of information and delays with submittals, RFIs and punch lists. Construction teams were working off large printed drawing sets with out-of-date revisions, which led to unnecessary rework and miscommunication. The RFI submission process alone would often take up to 20 minutes per RFI. Contracts Manager, Hendrik Jansen van Vuuren, illustrates the cumbersome process his team was facing: “Our standard process included the completion of a submittal or RFI template and the attachment of supplementary documents and photos. Any photos taken with a phone or camera, had to be transferred to a PC first, so they can be attached to an email together with all related documentation, that is sent via email – that just took forever.”
Tri-Star also needed to find a better way to communicate quickly and efficiently, both on-site and off with their architects, consultants and internal teams. However, introducing new solutions to fix onsite workflow problems proved difficult. The teams they worked with didn’t feel comfortable changing the way they worked, nor were they motivated to try something different. “We’re dealing with a lot of hardened construction ‘never-change people.’ They catch up but it takes a while,” shares Hendrik jokingly.
Additionally, Tri-Star’s costs began to increase on the job because they were forced to cover the expenses for trash and rubble from subcontractors. On every job Tri-Star put up skips for rubble removal for their own work and explained to their subcontractors they needed to bring their own skips or find another way to dispose of their own rubble. But the subcontractors’ rubble would continue to end up in Tri-Star’s skips. As Site Agent Prince Mabuza explains, “At the end of the job you need to sit there in a massive fight with all of these subbies [subcontractors] because you’ve got a huge bill for rubble removal and nobody wants to take responsibility for it,” bringing to light the lack of accountability on the subcontractors’ end.
“With submittals, the access to drawings is available straight away and you’re working off the latest ones. It makes life much easier and much quicker.”
NICO NAGEL | SITE AGENT
The solution
Having implemented the use of Fieldlens by RedTeam at his previous company, Hendrik introduced the solution to his team at Tri-Star to help streamline communication and drive accountability. Fieldlens is an intuitive construction jobsite management solution that helps connect teams in real time. As a Site Manager in his previous role, Hendrik had quickly picked up Fieldlens to post wastage, create tags, print reports and update contract changes.
Tackling the real-time communication issues was the main driver for bringing Fieldlens to Tri-Star, but Hendrik knew that it was important to get buy-in from his team first to guarantee a successful rollout. He found his executive sponsor in Louis Opperman, Contracts Director at Tri-Star, who was keen on finding innovations that would solve their problems. That executive support enabled them to find ways to use Fieldlens to standardize real-time communication across the company and with their contractors.
Bringing along their contractors on this technology implementation journey was critical for Tri-Star, especially on high-profile projects like the University of the Witwatersrand. Now they’re able to count on their subcontractors and consultants to create their submittals and punch items directly on site and have them posted immediately in Fieldlens, so the responsible teams can instantly take action. Fieldlens helps keep everyone focused on critical tasks and provides direct access to up-to-date plan revisions, digitally and readily available in the palm of their hand. Site Agent, Nico Nagel, who’s tasked with managing the Wits Digital Dome project on behalf of Tri-Star Construction remarks the positive impact this transition has had: “With submittals, the access to drawings is available straight away and you’re working off the latest ones. It makes life much easier and much quicker.”
To solve their problem with subcontractor accountability, Tri-Star Construction uses Fieldlens to take a picture of every skip that leaves the site and tags every contractor who dumps their rubble there. “We run a report twice a week so they get a report in their inbox and they know they’ve been tagged on the skip that left the site this week, and there can’t be any more arguments,” explains Prince. This updated process allows them to have consistent communication with their subs and adds the necessary proof to improve accountability across parties and decrease confusion.
The results
After implementing Fieldlens, Tri-Star saw immediate time savings with punch lists and RFIs being completed up to 75% faster. Hendrik shares, “To do a submittal the old way will take you 15-20 minutes, whereas in 5 minutes you can get it done with Fieldlens. Our Site Managers are supposed to spend their important time on big problems rather than taking 20 minutes to do an RFI, submittals and the like. It’s valuable time that we save.”
The team also found that Fieldlens was much more intuitive than other solutions once team members began to opt in to it, with the help of management support. Now, as the team is diving deeper into their use of the solution, they’re already finding more ways the app can help them.
Their new process for keeping team members accountable, now allows Tri-Star to track all site activities and ensures that contract costs no longer go over budget. “You know exactly what’s happening. So when a contract charge comes through, there’s no argument,” shares Prince about the improved new process used on projects like the Wits – Commerce, Law & Management Faculty Administration Building.
Tri-Star Construction continues to make progress investing in its digital transformation with Fieldlens to make employees’ lives easier; but it’s only at the beginning of that journey. Getting the rest of the company upskilled into digital solutions on more projects is an important long term goal.
Learn more about our jobsite management solution, Fieldlens, today!