How A Fire Protection Supplier Stays Consistent With PM Vitals Software
Helping Fire Suppression Company Strengthen Its Document Control
Our client has been a leading fire protection and life safety company for over 35 years. This is a full-service company that designs, engineers, installs, repairs, services and inspects a variety of fire suppression and life safety systems for a wide range of corporate, education, medical, government and military facilities. The company employs one of the industry’s largest and most experienced staff of engineers, designers, project managers, installers, technicians, and inspectors. Our client has offices in several states nationwide.
PART I:
Challenges
This particular fire protection company was in search of an online solution that would increase the efficiency of their internal document control, both to their employees and to customers.
With a large staff spread across multiple projects and several states, they needed to have a system in place to manage the abundance of documents they produced.
The goal was to find a system that updated in real-time, ensuring every employee was working off the most current documents or blueprints. The system also needed to have tracking capabilities for components such as purchase orders, change orders, and timesheets.
PART 2:
Solution
This company eventually selected PM Vitals after going through approximately 15 online demos of various platforms.
The decision to choose PM Vitals came down to their robust communication tools and the flexibility of the software. The District General Manager noted, "A lot of the other products seemed very rigid – you had to do it their way. That was good for [the software companies], but we needed something to do it [our] way."
PM Vitals was able to develop a customized solution allowing our client’s employees to easily access a centralized document management system that offered up-to-date information in real-time. The system also allowed our client to present a more consistent interaction with clients and customers. On PM Vitals’ customization options, the Operations Manager stated "We were able to have PM Vitals fit our company instead of us trying to fit PM Vitals."
Our Engaged Approach
PART 3:
Results
Our client was able to roll out PM Vitals’ basic document control modules relatively quickly, and they immediately began producing results.
The system allowed our client to track the performance of individual projects better and see that they were consistently profitable. Employees were able to gain a clearer understanding of scope, which resulted in improved tracking of changes, RFIs, and responses.
The new information generated from PM Vitals allowed our client to gain a better understanding of what practices and procedures were working, as well as guidelines that could use improvement. A "big factor," according to the General Manager, was that PM Vitals allowed the company to measure the changes made and to "see if it was working either positively or negatively." The software’s capabilities also led to the company being able to enhance procedures already in place. The ability to upload images of completed work for real-time review by offsite employees not only boosted quality control but provided another layer of accountability.
"Thanks to PM Vitals, we are consistently coming in under our estimates. ...We are going after bigger jobs. We’re able to execute larger jobs with more complex document requirements and work with higher profile clients."
PART 4:
Benefits
This fire suppression contractor currently utilizes PM Vitals software to manage document controls and internal and external communication paths.
They also use the software to track all of their administrative and operational data, such as purchase orders, timesheets, change orders, and RFIs.
The General Manager estimates that his company has seen a ten-fold return from its investment in PM Vitals. He said, "We are consistently coming in under our estimates."
With the help of PM Vitals, this client is able to grow its business consistently. The GM stated, "We are going after bigger jobs. We’re able to execute larger jobs with more complex document requirements and work with higher profile clients."
PM Vitals was able to provide clearer, more precise communications with rich data across business units. Furthermore, we were able to reduce their document control footprint by streamlining their documentation from multiple disjointed solutions into one consolidated platform.
Conclusion
The relationship between this fire protection company and PM Vitals is still evolving to this day.
In addition to increasing the efficiency of their document management, PM Vitals is creating industry-specific dashboards to help them gain more value out of the data sets now at their disposal.
