Founded in 1990, Mace is an international consultancy and construction company, operating in 21 sectors from five global hubs. Mace prides itself on innovation and has applied these principles when delivering major projects—from The Shard and the London Eye in the UK to Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia and the V&A Waterfront in South Africa.

Before

• Process inefficiencies caused by pen and paper systems
• Poor document control
• Poor communication
• Delays in feedback on defects resulted in project delays
• Inconsistent benchmarking

After

• Improved defect management and quality assurance
• Improved benchmarking
• Simplified process for contractors
• Communicated snags in real time to contractors
• Improved accuracy of reporting
• Saved time, which previously would have been spent on manual processes

Challenge

Organisationally, Mace faced the common challenge of managing multiple contractors of varying sizes during projects, mainly the challenge of working across different sets of data. Mace wanted to improve the speed of its communication and defect management operations, as well as jettison manual processes to gain greater efficiency.

Using old processes, snags couldn’t be captured in real time as they had to be manually recorded and taken back to the office to type up and allocate to the necessary contractor. This delay inevitably led to other potential project delays and increased errors overall. Benchmarking is also a vital part of defect management and typically takes place at the review stage of any contractors work. Mace wanted to improve this function as its paper-based system was making it harder to have consistent quality benchmarking, therefore they were having problematic handovers.

Seeking a new approach

Mace was especially keen to use a new solution on the Birmingham New Street Station project, given the complexity.

The company sought a system that would:

1. Automate the storage and sending of information in realtime;
2. Could improve efficiency;
3. Increased productivity; and
4. Improved control and relationships with numerous contractors all working on one project.

Solution

Mace selected Trimble Viewpoint's Field View™ to replace manual processes with a powerful, yet easy-to-use digital solution. Field View is a cloud-based (and off-line capable) mobile app solution that streamlines field tasks and automates workflows for quality assurance/quality control, safety, project delivery and handover.

Field View can help ensure a fast-tracked and seamless handover. Users can log incomplete tasks and defects ahead of any owner walk-through to help nullify project delays. Field View also gives users the opportunity to establish quality benchmarks to store on the system and adopt across all projects.

This solution allows users to send emails to contractors instantaneously, which includes a description and picture of the defect so they can take action quickly.

Results

Mace dramatically increased its ability to manage defects effectively on the Birmingham New Street Station project by using Field View.

“On this project we’ve added 15,000 items into Field View, which would have been very difficult to manage on a paper-based system. We’ve managed to close out 12,000 of them and I don’t believe we would have been able to do this without using Field View,” said Paul Dalton, senior construction manager with Mace.

Mace uses Field View as a recording tool for benchmarking. At the start of a project, the contractor will ask Mace to review work to make sure the quality of the work is per specification. With Field View, teams can take photos and compare against benchmarks they have set.

Making Life Easier

Replacing the need to return to the office to capture snags has saved Mace valuable time and productivity, which is especially hard hit when records are lost in the transition from field to office. With Field View, Mace captured all snags in realtime and then upload those to the system, which automatically sent a picture with a description in an email to its contractors to address.

Construction Manager Freddie Maxwell-Hart said, "Field View is really helpful—not just for me, but it makes contractors' lives easier, not reading paper copies and matching photos to notes."

Trimble Viewpoint’s Professional Services team helped through every step of the implementation so Mace could maximise its value from the products. The fast onboarding of the tool was vital for Mace and made rolling it out across the whole project to other teams easier. Mace Construction Manager James Haywood describes Field View as, “easy to use, simple to follow so anybody can use it. I had 30 minutes training for the system and I have used it nearly every day since.”

Gaining Control

On the Birmingham New Street project, Mace increased the usage of Field View after seeing successful results from the outset. The company began with only five tablets, but was soon using 20—a testament to how well Field View worked.

In short, the ability to gain greater real time accountability and project control, as well better oversight of its contractors’ work, has made Field View an ideal solution for Mace.