Are You at Risk?
March 02, 2010
Sundt Construction, www.sundt.com, Tempe, Ariz., and WESTON Solutions, www.westonsolutions.com, West Chester, Pa., have a few things in common—both recognize the value of technology in construction, specifically the value of tracking and managing documents to comply with government regulations.
These two construction firms are not alone. In today’s economy, a number of contractors, owners, subcontractors, and others involved in the construction process are putting more of a focus on how to manage risk and comply with government regulations. In most cases, technology is playing an increasingly important role.
Sundt Construction recently implemented new software to lower risk and comply with legal eDiscovery and FRCP (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) requirements for its nearly 1,000 employees.
The company’s typical construction process includes large quantities of electronic information including contracts, project schedules, and emails, among others. The new software increased the protection of this data, while also improving the search, retrieval, sort, archive, and backup capabilities of the documents. As one example, with the new technology, Sundt can archive emails for up to 10 years.
Sundt replaced Symantec Backup Exec with CommVault Simpana software, www.commvault.com, Oceanport, N.J. The Web-based software allows Sundt to search for emails, allowing the company to find documents in less than an hour instead of three days.
Additionally, the ‘deduplication’ feature allows Sundt to cut the number of offsite tapes from 30 to five each month. In the long run, Sundt estimates its footprint of long-term vaulting will be reduced by about 90%.
WESTON Solutions takes a bit of a different approach to compliance. The design/build, green building, and clean energy company created its own Web-based solution for documenting, tracking, reporting, and resolving OSHA (Occupational, Safety, and Health Admin.), EH&S (environmental, health, and safety), and other audit program findings.
The AuditFast Compliance System enables audits to be completed ahead of schedule, and the firm estimates a cost savings of 25% to 50% by using AuditFast in comparison to traditional and paper-based methods.
WESTON is a tech-savvy company, using a number of different homegrown solutions to improve processes. The company also has a TeamLink Web-based collaborative workspace, document management systems, environmental data management systems, facility management systems, geographic information systems, mobile data collection systems, workflow automation systems, and modeling systems, among others.
Most recently, the company has decided to standardize its processes for larger projects on Proliance from Meridian Systems, www.meridiansystems.com, Folsom, Calif. WESTON is using the technology to integrate project management, human capital management, and financial reporting.
The firm selected the technology based on the Proliance RFI (request for information), submittal and change management workflow, and the reporting capabilities.
According to Robert Hackett, vice president, WESTON, Proliance helps integrate its other internal systems into one project management system, improving collaboration and visibility across projects.