ROEL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
Retained to construct a $49.5 million Affordable Housing project in downtown San Diego for non-profit charity Father Joe's Villages, Roel Construction Company used the NoteVault voice-to-text mobile reporting system to help complete the job on time and under budget.
Company: Established in 1917, General Contractor Roel Construction Company is recognized for both integrity and the ability to deliver projects on schedule and within budget. Based in San Diego, Roel is a consistent recipient of numerouslocal and national building industry awards, including the Associated General Contractors' prestigious First Place National Construction Safety Award in 2009.
Challenge: The fi rst of its kind in San Diego, the 12-story, 136 unit residential project known as "16th & Market", was being built for non-profi t charity Father Joe's Villages to provide a helping hand for low-income working families. Father Joe's Villages planned to rent the units to deserving families at rates as much as fi fty percent less than rents for comparable apartments in downtown San Diego. To realize their goal, controlling costs and holding them to a minimum
Superintendent on the 217,000 square foot 16th & Market project was Roel's Director of Field Operations Drew Peterson. As a construction industry veteran, Peterson is well aware of the importance of keeping all parties involved with a project informed and up to date on matters affecting the job's progress. As with all Roel Construction's projects, time-consuming &Market project.
Solution: Offered an opportunity to test the NoteVault voice-to-text mobile reporting system, Peterson decided to give it a try while overseeing 16th & Market. Using NoteVault's automated voice reporting system rather than his customary "pencil and paper" method of recording field notes, Peterson was able to dictate information directly from the job site by simply dialing the number assigned to the 16th & Market project and speaking into his mobile phone. His messages were then transcribed and posted to the job file by NoteVault and within a matter of minutes were available to all parties involved with the 16th & Market project.
Peterson found that Daily Construction Reports prepared from dictated notes transcribed by NoteVault consistently contained far more accurate and substantive information than traditional handwritten reports, since the information was
Particularly impressive according to Peterson were the accuracy of NoteVault's transcriptions, the speed with which notes
Results: Completed in February 2009, Peterson and Roel delivered 16th & Market to Father Joe's Villages ahead of schedule and under budget. Using NoteVault's automated system to prepare his Daily Construction Reports and field notes was a factor in 16th & Market's early completion, since Peterson was able to concentrate on the job itself rather than spend his time hand-preparing and filing daily reports.
Savings realized through volume purchasing and Value Engineering, including the time saved by using NoteVault, made it possible to include upgrades such as granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and custom cabinetry not found in
Business Lesson Learned
- NoteVault reporting saves valuable time, since the average person can speak seven times faster than writing
- Dictated notes transcribed and posted by NoteVault contain more accurate and pertinent information than traditional pencil and paper reporting
- With NoteVault, incidents affecting a job can be reported from the fi eld as they occur rather than at the end of the day when details are no longer fresh
- NoteVault results in faster, easier and better job documentation than tradi-tional methods of reporting
Quotable: "NoteVault forces one to think more clearly and dictate more accurately, and it defi nitely saves time." - Drew Peterson, Director of Field Operations, Roel Con-struction Company.
