How Voyage Care uses PlanGrid to reduce project delays

Voyage Care has a national reputation for delivering innovative, high quality, responsive, and flexible services in a range of settings to support clients with learning and physical disabilities. The company offers supported living, care homes, respite services, day services and brain injury rehabilitation, and has experience enabling people to move from a residential setting to a more independent supported living environment as their needs change.

The company collaborates with a wide selection of partners and suppliers to deliver essential services to clients on a daily basis. Phil Chawner has worked with Voyage Care as a Project Manager for 11 years and appreciates the strong relationships the company has established with its’ partners and suppliers.

Based out of their main office in Lichfield UK, Phil has played a key role in the capital development department, working closely with the property team and stakeholders on new builds, high value refurbishments to existing property portfolio and new acquisitions. With over 400 properties to manage nationwide, it can be difficult to balance the increasing demand for services against tighter timescales and budgets.

All Voyage Care development schemes are designed and managed in-house and the team works on a number of projects per year across a wide geographic spread. These includes a mix of new build and refurbishment with schedules running from 12 weeks to 1 year. This high level of activity requires close collaboration across department teams and with external providers. Furthermore, accurate sharing of information – especially plans and drawings – is critical.

Prior to selecting PlanGrid, the company was working off of paper drawings, which resulted in problems with version control and issues communicating revised plans to the site team. For Phil and his team, it was time consuming to track the progress of projects when team members were working off of different drawings, and there was a lack of visibility in terms of roles and responsibilities.

The overall absence of collaboration impacted project completions and resulted in cost overruns and rework issues with several projects. Determined to improve project communication, Phil was keen to explore an alternative approach for Voyage Care to support the capital development department with their vital work in their communities.

Phil discovered PlanGrid after researching on the internet and downloading the application in late 2016. The software solution has delivered real benefits to the business in terms of improved collaboration and efficiency on the job site, and has been implemented across a range of activities on projects, including RFIs, specifications, issue reports, permits, QA/QC documents, snag lists and installation guides.

The elimination of paper drawings has reduced version control issues, saving both time and money and bringing confidence across a number of complex projects. With PlanGrid, all drawing revisions are uploaded and auto linked together, facilitating comparisons and accommodating changes across all relevant parties. Site forms are completed in PlanGrid replacing paper versions, which require printing and filing. With PlanGrid the forms are completed via a mobile device and are stored and retained in the project documents.

PlanGrid has delivered improved project team communication and coordination, with access to shared dashboards and reports. Project photos and videos are quickly generated and circulated, saving considerable time previously spent collating images and content offline for progress reports. This feature also provides a powerful tool to verify any queries without causing delay to a project.

Voyage Care is using PlanGrid to collate snag lists on properties, which is then easily shared with sub-contractors from within the solution. This helps to ensure the final details are completed when the team is still on site, reducing unnecessary project delays.

According to Phil Chawner, the biggest benefit from PlanGrid is the improved collaboration and communication on projects. The capital development department works on several projects across the country, but with PlanGrid, the physical distances are removed. PlanGrid gives Voyage Care the confidence that all team members are working off the latest set of drawings, with any changes shared quickly. Roles and responsibilities are clear and issue tracking provides visibility into outstanding issues, and highlights ownership of activities. PlanGrid is easy to use; the Voyage Care team enjoys the features and benefits while their business and clients get access to the resources they need within the agreed timescales.