Oracle Customer Success—Clark Construction

More than a century old, Clark Construction Group, LLC, is one of the United States’ more experienced construction service providers, with more than $4 billion in annual revenue and projects throughout the country. The Bethesda, Md., firm supports its projects with teams of highly trained construction professionals and specialists to ensure that partnering, estimating, purchasing, scheduling, engineering, safety and community relations go smoothly throughout the construction process to produce quality, award-winning projects. For this project, Clark would join with Hunt Construction Group of Indianapolis and Smoot Construction Company of Washington, D.C. The combined portfolio of these three firms includes construction of 11 of the past 16 Major League Baseball stadiums built in the United States.

• About Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service

  Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service (formerly Textura Latista) has been a leader in mobile and web-based construction field management software and services since its founding in 2001. Its software is used by top contractors and top owners worldwide to reduce project costs and risks by eliminating redundancy, enhancing collaboration among project participants, and allowing more thorough analysis of project performance.

• Challenge: Speed and Accuracy

  The city of Washington, D.C., and their new Major League Baseball franchise, the Washington Nationals, were looking for a first rate project: a brand new baseball stadium that would showcase the team, complement the capital cityscape, revitalize the Southeast neighborhood, and be a major league attraction for years to come. On top of that, the city and Nationals owners required that the ballpark be ready for play on opening day in 2008. Most major league ballparks take 36 months of design and construction. Nationals Park, a 41,000 seat stadium with a $611 million budget and “green” aspirations, should certainly have taken that long. However, using a unique design-build process that had one section of stadium under construction while later sections were still being planned, Clark would only need 23 months to complete the new ballpark. Clark wanted every edge in the shortened timeframe and looked for a computing solution that would automate its processes, synchronize its information, and streamline its communications– anything to keep its managers and subcontractors working on site rather than shuffling papers in the office.

• Solution: Move the Construction Office to the Ballpark Job Site

  Clark was able to meet its deadline by using Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service software on Motion LE1700 tablet PCs. The rugged, book-sized, portable computers could work on- and offline, allowing information to be created and saved electronically on the job site and then synchronized later wherever an Internet connection was available. The tablets also had built-in digital cameras for photo documentation, and the software could recognize handwriting and speech and convert them to electronic text. Architects, engineers, and construction professionals could access plans and drawings instantly in the field, mark them with changes, and share those changes with other users over Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service’s collaborative Internet portal.
  
  The systems were perfect for the punch-list quality-control portion of the construction process. Previously, an architect, engineer or inspector would handwrite notes while walking the building. Then they would retype the notes into a spreadsheet, which could only be managed on office computers or on paper. To communicate issues with the more than 100 subcontractors on the project, an engineer would have to create deficiency reports and assemble them manually for everyone who wanted one.
  
  With Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service, the notes were automatically transcribed and organized, and deficiency reports were created at the push of a button. “Having the data available nightly was much better than the old-fashioned way, which might take days or weeks,” said Matt Haas, Project Executive for Clark. “And with Excel there’s a lot of opportunity for information to get lost or mishandled; there’s a lot of cut-and-paste and retyping.  With Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service, we could do it all with a few clicks.”
  
  Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service also helped by creating a standard language for punch lists. Under the pen and paper system, an architect would walk the job site and have to describe issues and locations in his own words. When subcontractors would try to follow up with corrections, they might misinterpret language or get turned around, leading to confusion and more delays. “With Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service,” said Haas, “there were standard symbols and shortcuts that really cut down on inaccuracies and confusion.”
  
  Thirty-five Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service software end users, consisting of 20 HOK architects and 15 Clark-Hunt-Smoot engineers, shared 20 Motion tablet PCs on the stadium job site. Other users, including project owners and more than 100 subcontractors, were able to access information via emailed reports and through a Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service web portal hosted by Clark. Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service’s easy to use software interface meant that even novice and occasional users needed just fifteen minutes of training time to become proficient.

• Result: A Time-saving Home Run

  Using Motion LE1700 PCs and Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service software, Clark was able to cut turnaround time, decrease staffing needs, reduce chances for error, and improve collaboration with everyone involved in the project. They managed tens of thousands of punch list issues in only four weeks, and delivered Nationals Park on time in March 2008 and within the $611 million budget. The stadium exceeded environmental expectations and was awarded silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the US Green Building Council. Notably, the project was awarded Washington Building Congress Craftsmanship Awards for underpinning, foundations, and excavation; cast-in-place concrete; and structural steel and was also named Best Overall Project in the Design-Build Institute of America’s Mid-Atlantic Region for 2008.
  
  Haas added that, though this was his first experience working with a tablet PC and Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service software, he saw it as a great new development. “I’m surprised tablets have taken so long to get to the industry,” he said. “The computers always worked and were ready to go and were synced up. I definitely think this is the way to go as tablets get smaller, lighter and more durable.” After using Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service on individual projects since 2006, Clark has since implemented the program companywide. LATISTA made deficiency resolution so much more efficient that the Clark project team expects to use more of the web-based software in the future. Oracle Latista Field Management Cloud Service looks forward to further work with Clark as well, and to providing mobile solutions to more capital projects like Nationals Park.
  
  This story was originally published on www.texturacorp.com.