How Westcor Companies Leveraged Big Data to Save Time and Money

Traditional information systems may be sufficient to record basic information about project details, designs, costs, and employee data. However, they are limited in enabling users to access significant amounts of data or input from various data sources for analysis.
Construction data is large, heterogeneous, and dynamic, and such limitations can hamper construction companies from improving their operations and making better decisions.

Before using ITS Data Analytics, Westcor was using outdated software, which it had long outgrown. They had built out massive spreadsheets over the past few years that were all manually updated. According to Booth, it took their accounting people 130 hours per month to key the information into the spreadsheet. "That's a significant amount of time that they're spending on this spreadsheet every single month," ITS CEO
Tom Andrulis commented.

ITS had to take that same spreadsheet and break it down into small chunks to build reports from it. The team at ITS only had to go back to Westcor's data provider and do a minor update to get access to their data. But overall, the outcome of the initial proof of concept went great, as Andrulis puts it.

When asked how this has benefited them, Booth said it had enabled them to have quicker response times. "It allowed us to react to problems faster. The main thing is just the faster reaction time and not having to spend time generating reports. The information is automatically available," he said.

Not only that, but Westcor was also able to save at least two hours per week and thousands of dollars in labor. "I'm sure we save over $5,000 a year on the 1st report that we've got from data analytics," Booth said. Booth added that they're looking to do more with ITS Data Analytics with analyzing data for sales revenue, job cost information, and labor reporting.

Andrulis spotted an opportunity to provide Westcor strategic advice in improving its data reporting and analysis. It all started from a single question: he asked them how they measured their key performance indicators and metrics in the company. Andrulis was surprised to learn that Westcor was using a service they're spending $5,000 a month on without seeing results.

Westcor got a couple of dashboards built from that company, but they didn't continue to engage with them despite paying them. They also couldn't see the different graphs, dashboards, and charts on their phones, which is another issue. The managers that are out in the fields and building houses can't get the critical information on their phones.

Coincidentally, Westcor was also looking for somebody to talk through some business challenges they had and do a little bit of business consulting. Fortunately, ITS was more than happy to oblige. "ITS came up with a simplified solution for this reporting that we had, which allowed us to streamline our processes and improve our efficiencies," Booth said.

Andrulis introduced Westcor to the ITS Data Analytics technology and asked them if they were open to doing a proof-of-concept with the managed IT company to see if they could resolve some of those issues. The next steps were to figure out how ITS can access their data and what Westcor wants them to accomplish.

Apart from getting their data reporting sorted, ITS also assisted in terms of simplifying processes and workflows. Westcor needed a sounding board, and Andrulis laid everything out on a whiteboard and talked through all his different ideas to see how they could optimize workflows, add new functions, and prioritize tasks.

"They know what they're doing, but like any human being, sometimes we get stuck in our way, and having somebody to bounce the issue off of is helpful. Sometimes, all you need is another person to talk through it to get past that issue," Andrulis said.

One of ITS' practical recommendations was the use of Microsoft Teams for departmental communication and collaboration. ITS suggested that Westcor use Teams to record tutorials for employees and build a library out on Microsoft Stream.

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