How LPR sped up building their biggest project

Before the switch to PlanGrid, LPR relied upon paper blueprints for every project. As an organization, they decided to look into their inefficiencies and found that the field team was wasting hours trying to locate up-to-date drawings.

LPR also had no experience using tablets. Instead, they maintained multiple copies of drawings onsite. Whenever a revision was made, they would reissue the new file to a local print shop, and reprint every single copy. When they decided to switch to using both digital and mobile, they had ambitious demands for a new solution.

The executive team looked at four vendors for mobile plan collaboration. During their multi-vendor analysis, PlanGrid stood out because of its sheet rendering speed, ease of use, and its suite of field tools, including photos, issue tracking, markups, punchlists, and document attachments. After whittling their choices down, LPR began a pilot to test PlanGrid’s field adoption.

LPR tested PlanGrid on a community college job in Wyoming. They brought the field crew into the office for their first formal training, and bought iPads for their superintendents and foremen. It was an instant hit, and one PlanGrid project grew to 18 PlanGrid projects within 3 months. Speed and efficiency were key reasons for growth.

“People love the ability to zoom in to see details. Initially, many thought the screen would be so small that the iPads could not be effective. They quickly found this was not the case. In fact, it is a strength.” –Thad Lutgens, Director of Equipment and IT, LPR Construction

By January of 2016, 95% of their projects were being managed with PlanGrid, since they quickly found that, for maximum efficiency, they needed to distribute iPads to their entire field team. Today, more than 35 LPR projects have collaborated using PlanGrid. Foremen and superintendents are the most consistent mobile users, but project managers who carry Microsoft Surfaces use PlanGrid’s Windows app for quick drawing access.

On average, PlanGrid is shaving 3 weeks from LPR’s schedule per project. PlanGrid speeds up their RFI process, so their cycle of information exchange is dramatically shortened. In addition, their labor productivity has increased to save each employee an average of 3 hours per week. Time savings alone add up to over $1.7 million per year.

LPR has also cut $300,000 in annual paper costs from their budget. They now keep one printed set of drawings in the office, and none in the field. All of their field employees have access to digital drawings at all times.

Using a conservative estimate, they also know they save at least $120,000 annually in rework. Thus, LPR’s total savings total $2.19 million per year; just from implementing PlanGrid on their projects. In 2017, LPR is using PlanGrid on some high-scale mechanical and steel work around the country.

Whether they’re working on power plants, hotels, airports, or stadiums, PlanGrid is how they communicate on the job.