Company type
Interior finish contractor
Company name
Brasada Inc.
Project types
Multi-family residential construction projects
Team size
4–8 team members
About
Brasada Inc. is a Calgary-based interior finishing contractor specialising in the multi-family residential construction sector. Brasada is responsible for supplying and installing residential doors, trim, and hardware for projects ranging in size from 80 to 300 units.
The challenge
Managing crews on multi-family construction projects has its challenges.
- Identifying and logging deficiencies throughout a project is hard to manage. Many suites look the same, so it’s easy to lose track of where things are across multiple units and floors. Crew members can also have a hard time remembering what needs to be done. In the end, a lot slips through the cracks and finishing a job takes longer than it should.
- Since Brasada supplies the material as well as installs it, documenting successful installations is critical. If items get damaged by other trades, it can cause friction with the builder/GC over who is responsible. Without proof, Brasada often has to absorb the cost.
- Distributing ongoing checklists is hard to manage. iPhone notes can be shared and collaborated on, but not with Android users. When a list of 15 to 20 items needs to go out, the only options are texting it to everyone or printing it out. Management has no way of knowing what got completed, so constant follow-up is required.
How Buildster helped
Buildster helped with all three of these items.
- The ability to drop pins on a blueprint gives both foreman and employees a simple way to log and remember things. Tasks or deficiencies can be assigned to specific people directly on the Blueprints. If others need to be brought in, a quick @mention gives them all the info instantly. Deficiencies are visible across the blueprints and notifications are sent when they’re completed. It’s visual and everyone instantly gets how it works.
- The photo documentation feature lets foreman and employees drop and rotate directional arrows onto blueprints and attach photos to them. Photos are timestamped and easy to find. On one recent project, crews installed more than 600 mirrored doors and every one was photo documented after installation. If anything was later damaged, the proof was there and findable in seconds.
- Using Buildster’s Notes feature, the foreman can quickly write a checklist and share it with the team. When someone checks off an item, everyone can see who did it and when. The whole team knows what’s outstanding without asking. Everyone can comment if needed and everything is in real time. This feature has been a game changer.
Results
One app that elevates everyone’s ability on site.
- Employees have more agency to organize their own work, and management has more confidence in communication.
- The number of toolbox meetings needed has gone down.
- The whole team stays more connected on any given job.
- At final walkthroughs, there is a big reduction in close-out deficiencies, because they were captured and dealt with earlier by the team.