AREA3 standardizes and tames version control with Procore

As AREA3 grew, its project management evolved from an early reliance on the Microsoft Suite to stand-alone solutions for project delivery, documentation, RFIs, drawings and registers. The struggle to build its own ‘best-of-industry’ platform required time to manage, and it never fully delivered an environment that could support the quality benchmarks necessary for AREA3’s projects and accreditations.

The company wanted a core platform that would ensure all users adhered to standardised version control and filing structure and could view live dashboards and extract reports easily and quickly.

AREA3 realised the benefits Procore could provide its client base and its own business. First, the company implemented Procore Project Management and the Correspondence management tool internally, so they could experience the solution first hand and then share these insights with its client base.

“We had been using another solution for seven years. While it met our needs for standard project management, Procore’s major differences have really blown us away,” said Charles Penny, Managing Director, AREA3. “The support and contact we have with the Procore team are outstanding—they are always there. Now, all of our staff use Procore, and the more they use it, the better it becomes. The platform innovation over the past two years helps Procore stand out from the pack.”

Before Procore, AREA3’s documentation required constant quality checks to maintain consistency and version control, which Charles described as a “massive issue.” Staff were making slight variations to templates, which meant the team never knew whether everyone was working off the same base. For Charles, this proved to be time-consuming and frustrating for all levels of the business.

“We wanted a filing system which would allow us to replicate our systems. And because of our ISO accreditation, we needed an environment where an external auditor could understand our projects and business in a very systematic manner. Procore has streamlined our processes and procedures, including our filing and version control,“ he said.

Procore has significantly reduced AREA3’s administration time by automatically uploading large amounts of drawings and allocating files to correct folders. Locking down meeting minutes in Procore templates now delivers quality documentation which can be submitted to attendees promptly.

“It looks so professional. Another bonus for us moving to Procore has been the ability to extract all of the data we previously held in another solution by automatically transferring this valuable information, through a third-party Procore application, directly into the Procore folder structure. This is handy for live project information and archive information on projects, saving time and frustration.“

AREA3 relies on Procore’s Correspondence management tool to centralise all of its project correspondence, freeing up Outlook for email use only. For the team, it has become the go-to place for searching for documents and tagging emails that might require a follow-up. It also includes links to RFIs, drawings and workflows. For Charles, it's become a co-ordination point for all correspondence—an auditable trail of information for the life cycle of the project.

With Procore, AREA3 can track live information as it happens and react immediately if necessary. In a mission-critical environment, this is key, and it underpins the time, cost and quality drivers for good project delivery.

“Procore has made the delivery of projects a lot more efficient. We can trace documentation and workflows and have established robust accountability benchmarks. The team at Procore understands how important this is for us and they are always by our side answering queries, demonstrating constant innovation that will help our business and delivering a phenomenal amount of support,” Charles said.