Case Study: CMC Group Accelerates Grovenor House Project with Vela Systems Software

The Situation: Driving Quality Under Significant Time-to-Close Pressures

Grovenor House, Miami, Fla

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The CMC Construction, Inc team faced a challenge. Grovenor House, a 30 story highend condominium project in Coconut Grove, Miami was under significant time-to-close pressures in a competitive selling market. The 166 luxury units required a high degree of finish detail, so quality assurance and control was essential to the project's financial success. To complicate matters, the worst hurricane season in 10 years jeopardized project delivery.

How could the team efficiently create, analyze and manage work-to-complete and punchlists to maintain a high standard of quality?

The Solution: Vela Enables Greater Efficiency and Better Quality

One key part of the solution was to maximize team efficiency by using Vela Systems mobile software. By replacing their field notebooks with tablet PCs and Vela's Worklist/Punchlist software module, CMC was able to save time and improve project quality monitoring. Project Manager Rick Pena explains:

"After walking the job site I used to spend at least two hours typing up my notes into the computer so I could track issues and task the subcontractors. With Vela, I was able to add field notes and issues while I was in the field, saving hours of time. And it was easy to use - most of my common problems were already in the system and could be reused with a tap of a pen on the screen."

Vela's Automatic Reports: A Key Timesaving Feature

Vela Systems' automatic reports were another important feature for Pena and the CMC team: "In the past, I used to have to manage a large, unwieldy spreadsheet to track tasks for each subcontractor. Formatting and printing reports was very time consuming. With Vela's Subcontractor Reports, I could easily generate task lists by subcontractor, floor, room, MasterSpec® section, and even by specific issue description. This saved me time and helped the subcontractors be more efficient. For example, we would give a sub a list of all locations in the building with a specific problems, such as a shower glass opening holdto dimension, and the sub would then task their team to only do that work. Vela made the whole project more efficient in how we managed our resources."

At handover, the CMC team used Vela's Owner Handover and Customer service software modules to improve the efficiency of the closeout process and deliver premium customer service. The CMC customer service team logged owner punch items on the tablet during the walkthrough, assigned tasks to the subcontractors immediately and printed out work lists. Pena highlights: "By using Vela Systems software for construction, punch, and owner walkthroughs, CMC compressed the project timeline, improved visibility into quality of the work, and provided a very high level of professionalism during the process. Our customers were very impressed."

Outcome: Project Accelerated, Meets Quality Standards

CMC's General Superintendent Ken Batchelor led the project to achieve handover approximately four months ahead of schedule. In summary, by streamlining CMC's project delivery process, Vela created time gains and cost savings by: