Working and living without access to power is a harsh reality to fathom, especially for residents of Chicago, who rely heavily on electricity for heating.
ABCO Electrical Construction & Design, LLC has been servicing the Chicago area for more than 15 years, providing electrical support on various residential, commercial, and industrial projects. Like many long-standing construction companies, however, ABCO was struggling to increase productivity. They were hesitant to adopt new technology and relied solely on paper and email to manage and communicate work. Their Project Manager, Sam Carlson, said, “we knew we were a little behind the eight ball when it came to the way we communicated and shared plans, and we thought we were making big strides just by using Dropbox, but then we found Fieldwire and things started to change.”
Every ABCO project runs on Fieldwire
Now, Carlson is able to upload unlimited drawings into the Fieldwire platform or automatically sync them from Dropbox. He can organize plans into project-specific folders and access them from any device; important information he’d previously stored in bulky binders and filing cabinets. Now, all information relating to a project – plans, resources, submittals – is stored in Fieldwire for everyone to access. All detail, section, and elevation callouts are automatically activated on plans, allowing Carlson to easily navigate between drawing sets even when he’s working offline. When in the field, he can create tasks, take videos and 360° photos — which are automatically time-stamped — and immediately send them to the shop, as well as capture site observations on the fly and instantly communicate them to his team in the office.
Fieldwire was chosen for its ease of use
Fieldwire’s real-time capabilities and ease of use quickly won over Carlson’s colleagues who were hesitant to adopt new technology. Carlson said, “we have senior site staff who once wouldn’t even take their iPhone onsite; those are the guys who are now advocates for the platform.” Once they realized they could view their plans on an iPad or iPhone, instead of flipping through hundreds of physical papers, the implementation of the platform was immediate. The ABCO team no longer needs to haul out a bevy of binders just to locate one small piece of information – everything they need is recorded and stored in Fieldwire.
ABCO is further saving time onsite in ways they’d never imagined. It is not uncommon for jobs to progress at their own rate, but it became difficult at times to ensure there was enough work approved in advance, for an entire day. ABCO’s onsite foreman, Vince Mazzeffi can attest: “An employee recently told me that before Fieldwire, he sometimes found himself onsite unsure of what he needed to do next. But now, instead of having to wait for the Project Manager to call with updates or show up onsite, he simply pulls out his phone and opens the Fieldwire app.” Having a log of tasks literally at his fingertips has helped him organize his day in advance — to better maximize his efficiency and focus on doing the work he does do best.
ABCO outshines competitors with Fieldwire
ABCO’s adoption of Fieldwire has undoubtedly improved productivity by increasing transparency and reducing waste, giving Carlson and Mazzeffi, and the entire ABCO team, a strong advantage over competitors. When asking ABCO about their experience, and the benefits gained with the use of field management software, they summed it up by saying this:
