The Austin Company Continues to Ensure Project Success with Pype
November 30, 2020
In late 2019, Cleveland, Ohio based Design-Builder The Austin Company signed an enterprise agreement with Pype for AutoSpecs and SmartPlans, two cutting-edge risk management software platforms. Part of the Kajima U.S.A. family of companies, they are the third GC under that umbrella to standardize their processes with Pype (Flournoy Construction Group and Hawaiian Dredging being the other two), but the first to include SmartPlans in their workflow company-wide. With both AutoSpecs and SmartPlans, Austin will be able to extract submittal and schedule information from spec books and construction drawings with ease, allowing their project teams to proceed with confidence that they identified all requirements their clients are expecting.
“We are primarily focused on three processes when we use Pype,” said Joe Amaya, Senior Project Manager out of Austin’s Irvine, California Office. “Our first focus is on preconstruction, identifying the unique and long lead items in the specs and plans, and addressing that information in our estimate.” With their agreement allowing for unlimited AutoSpecs and SmartPlans usage, Austin’s preconstruction department can run bid sets through Pype’s software to extract high cost or long lead items before winning the project without having to worry about incurring additional costs.
“Second, we focus on the projects currently underway by using AutoSpecs and SmartPlans for QA/QC and submittal registers, making sure we haven’t missed any project requirements.” The artificial intelligence built into both platforms extracts submittals and schedules written in the specs and plans, and looks for submittals that are potentially missing based on industry standards and best practices. “Finally, these two platforms look not only for traditional submittals, but also identify closeout and commissioning requirements.”
Pype’s software is the brainchild of CEO Sunil Dorairajan, a former general contractor, who aimed to reduce the time project teams and estimating departments spent manually combing through spec books and drawings to extract submittal requirements. “I know first hand that successful project teams and GCs give project requirement-review its due diligence, but I also know that finding time for that diligence is extremely challenging. We aimed to give back that time while providing additional benefits around accuracy and risk management,” said Dorairajan. “AutoSpecs and SmartPlans provide clarity on project scope throughout the project life-cycle and reduce risk by surfacing data for teams to have more proactive discussions with stakeholders from owners to trade partners.”
“From a project team adoption point of view, it is a force multiplier,” said Amaya. “Generating a submittal log by hand can take a few weeks, depending on the size and complexity of what is going to be built. Project teams are customarily set up lean, and this software compresses the time dramatically spent on research, extracting and analyzing vital project data,” Amaya explained. “Once our project teams and estimators see how fast they can run through documents, and see how accurate that initial output is even before QA/QC, they’re quickly bought-in.”
The Austin Company is already a leader in the design and construction industry, and their work speaks for itself with every project they deliver. They recognize that maintaining that standard of excellence means investment in new construction technologies and software for their teams. Using these innovations, Austin employees can continue to elevate the quality of work they provide for their clients, reduce the financial risks their company takes on, and ultimately continue to find success in every project.
ABOUT THE AUSTIN COMPANY
The Austin Company is a design-build firm offering a comprehensive portfolio of services, including planning, architectural design, engineering, construction, and facility maintenance. Other services include site location and operations improvement consulting for commercial and industrial companies throughout North America.
Austin was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1878. Its headquarters remain in Cleveland, with regional offices in Atlanta, Georgia; Irvine, California; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Mexico City and San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Learn more at www.theaustin.com.