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Graham Group Ltd.
The Graham Toolbox
Application 'Toolbox' Helps Construction Firm Achieve New Levels of Continent-Wide Efficiency
Background
After operating for almost 60 years as a family-owned business, Graham Construction and Engineering, which subsequently evolved into the Graham Group of companies, was formed in 1985 by its employees and the Graham family. Today, with annual revenue of $1 billion and regional and branch offices throughout Canada and the United States, Calgary-based Graham Group has become one of the construction industry's leading contractors.
Through its three operating divisions - Graham Commercial, Graham Industrial and Gracom Masonry -Graham Group's 2,100 office and field staff manage typically 200 job sites covering virtually every aspect of the construction industry, including commercial office building and retail projects; oil, gas and petrochemical processing plants; power-generation facilities; institutional projects such as hospitals and universities; manufacturing, warehousing and service plants; mining and pulp and paper facilities; recreational complexes and high-rise condominium and apartment complexes.
Challenge
Graham Group's rapid growth in the past five years was accompanied by an increasingly difficult set of business challenges. It had to maintain control over operations across a far-flung organization. The company needed a consistent set of business processes - especially for cost control - and the ability to share project-management information in real time.
The construction industry also needed better collaboration among contractors, their business partners, primarily the sub-trades, and their customers. Customers required that a significant amount of project documentation substantiating costs accompany invoices, for example.
The use of manual processes, such as the bid-close process, became a significant problem as Graham began to bid on larger projects. It was becoming more difficult to even physically record all of the bid information in time; and as the number of projects grew in number and size, the ratio of experienced staff, knowledgeable in company controls and best practices, was shrinking relative to the number of new staff needed to complete the work. Graham Group needed a new approach to managing its business that would provide conistent processes and controls.
Solution
The Graham Toolbox is a comprehensive suite of integrated software applications tailored specifically for the construction industry. The Toolbox, which can be used by all Graham employees, provides a consistent set of processes covering all aspects of Graham's business to support new levels of cost control, operational efficiency and information sharing.
The core Toolbox applications include Marketing, Tender Management, Estimating, Project Administration, Invitation to Bid, Field Administration, Office Administration and Corporate Administration. The Marketing application, for example, is used to track potential business opportunities and manage customer relationships, while the Tender Management application is used to monitor current bids and allocate estimating resources.
Other highlights of the suite include Project Administration, which is used to monitor job costs and generate project-related documentation, and Field Administration, which tracks hours and productivity for staff and equipment, as well as managing job site inventory and performing daily cost reporting.
Results
The Toolbox is now in widespread use throughout the Graham Group of companies, resulting in numerous instances of cost and time savings, as well as improvements in operational efficiency. Receivables turnover on large industrial projects has been reduced from months to just days, for example; and for industrial clients wanting more documentation with their invoices, the Toolbox makes this information readily available, implicitly reconciled and automatically packaged as part of the invoice.
The bidding process, too, is much more automated with the Toolbox, leading to improved accuracy and control. Managers can pool estimating resources and even conduct reviews from other branch offices, thus making use of the expertise of the entire company.
The Toolbox has yielded significant improvements in all aspects of real-time data access and sharing, enhancing Graham's ability to provide accurate, timely information in response to growing requests from customers for more detailed information. It also helps Graham deal with construction labour shortages and staff turnover. With a consistent system supporting them, new hires can be oriented and trained much quicker; and experienced Graham staff are better able to delegate work more effectively, while providing the necessary supervision and control.
Management is universal in its opinion that expansion would not have been possible without the network of strong procedures and controls that the Toolbox provides.
Innovative Use of Technology
In addition to the comprehensive nature of the Graham Toolbox solution - it addresses every aspect of the business in an integrated fashion - the Toolbox enables information sharing seamlessly among various areas of expertise, promoting cross-functional collaboration.
A key challenge that this technology addressed was managing the diversity of work that the Graham Group supports. While many other contractors might specialize in only a single area of construction, such as road building or condominium development, Graham has projects under way in most areas of work in the industry. The Toolbox supports all of the areas with the same system, with a commitment to real-time information sharing.
A 2006 CIPA Winner!
For its exceptional application of information technology to solve real-world business problems, Graham Group Ltd. has been awarded a 2006 CIPA Silver Award of Excellence in the Organizational Transformation, For Profit category.
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