St. George is a member of the Berkeley Group. Founded in 1976, the Berkeley Group is now London's leading mixed-use developer and a FTSE 100 company. In recent years, the Berkeley Group has successfully built over 19,600 homes in London, Birmingham and the south of England. This influential conglomerate is made up of six independent entities, with St. George playing a key role in the transformation of central London's waterfront, providing high quality homes.
Before using Viewpoint Field View
Inefficient processes caused by pen and paper systems
Duplicate tasks
Delayed communications
Poor project follow-up
After using Viewpoint Field View
Rapid problem resolution and risk reduction
Clear visibility of projects
Increase productivity by reducing paperwork and duplication Better cost control
Easily track the progress of project tasks
Reduced time spent on site management
Challenge
From rural subdivisions to high-end apartment complexes, homebuilders face the same issues. St. George, like many contractors in the construction industry, had not yet embraced digital transformation for its entire building process. As a result, its site teams relied on manual methods for tasks such as planning, drawing checks, approvals, health and safety checks and problem solving. For example, problem lists were still drawn up by hand. This presented not only a risk of data loss, but also an increase in follow-up tasks and manual labor to document crucial project information, including scanning, photocopying and duplicating files. These activities included the need to e-mail copies to contractors while providing them with the original handwritten documents.
The solution
St. George chose Viewpoint Field View™ to replace these manual processes with an efficient, user-friendly digital solution. Field View, an offline, cloud-based mobile solution, simplifies jobsite operations and automates workflows related to quality assurance, safety, delivery and project handover. With Field View, St. George has successfully adopted paperless processes, eliminating the problems inherent in traditional paper-and-pencil methods. With Field View, users can take photos and document issues in real time, sending this information directly to contractors or the back office. This feature improves job management and tracking, while providing a centralized overview of job status. Collaboration and project management efficiency are significantly enhanced.
Results
St. George transformed its productivity and project execution by moving to a paperless system, prompting Project Manager Colin Draper to endorse the use of the product. " I can't think of any reason, regardless of the scale of the project, why a home builder wouldn't use Field View," he said.
Compared with previous manual methods, St. George has seen an increase in productivity. The ability to capture real-time information, such as photos and problem records, has proved invaluable. Once collected, this data can be sent instantly to the relevant contractor, significantly reducing time spent in the office. The contractors then used Field View to complete the tasks, ensuring that all work was tracked and accessed in St. George as part of a unified solution.
" It's easier to control the process, control costs and track problems that have been solved," says Draper.
St. George plans to expand its use of Field View, to take even greater advantage of the tool. Draper also plans to use the product for health and safety forms, planning, drawing verification and contract document signing.
