Case Study

The Boldt Company

The Boldt Company Uses Pype to Structure Submittal Data and Streamline Turnover Packages

January 27, 2020

Summary

Challenge

The Boldt Company’s innovative spirit led Field Engineer Phillip Boldt to seek improvements to two processes at once: identifying and tracking a project’s closeout requirements, and creating a turnover package. Boldt’s process had relied on cloning an Excel template for closeout requirements from similar, past projects and trying to apply it to current ones. Phillip said he would comb through the entire cloned spreadsheet, greying-out any irrelevant requirements and noting which of the remainder were already collected versus which were outstanding.

Once he completed his closeout log, Phillip began notifying specialty contractors of their requirements via email—an arduous and time-consuming process in and of itself. As documents came in and were accepted, he stored them in a predetermined file structure on a hard drive, which also stored Boldt’s closeout manual: a PDF table of contents for the folder structure made in powerpoint, where each document was hyperlinked by hand. “The most frustrating and mind-numbing part was organizing the file structure and hyperlinking each, individual document,” Phillip shared. “It was a large burden on my time as a Field Engineer, especially when there were other, more pressing closeout tasks.”

Solution

When Phillip first heard about Pype, he “wanted to see what AutoSpecs would pull from the spec book, and how Closeout would take over the notification process for document collection.” After he ran his project’s spec book through AutoSpecs and filtered the register down to closeout requirements, Phillip was surprised to learn that the specs called out fewer requirements than what Boldt teams had been supplying. “I had a sneaking suspicion this was the case,” Phillip said, “and it’s nice to know that the turnover packages we’re delivering are more robust and useful for the operations team than just what the specs require.” After making this discovery, Phillip elected to continue turning over their higher standard of packages, as they were more in line with owner expectations than the spec books.

With closeout requirements pulled from Pype AutoSpecs, Phillip turned his attention to fulfilling them with Pype Closeout. Sending out emails, catching up with specialty contractors on their requirements, and keeping track of progress was a tedious process that ate into the team’s limited time. But with Closeout, specific email notifications were sent out automatically according to each specialty contractor’s requirements. Then, once the submitted documents were approved, they were quickly compiled into a comprehensive turnover package with an automatically hyperlinked table of contents. Automating these two processes saved Phillip many hours of time, and allowed him to perform more valuable work as he transitioned between projects. “I was more than happy to turn all of that over to the software,” he said.

By using Pype, Phillip was not only able to meet and exceed owner expectations closing out his project, but he was able to start work on his next project sooner. “I was able to start talking to potential trades and to the architect on a new project, gaining a much deeper understanding of what lies ahead without having to worry about falling behind on the previous project’s closeout.”

The Boldt Company