NewProvision launches Scope Agent, now generally availableRead the announcement →
Book a Demo
Provision

How Harrington Builders cut 40 hours of scope writing with Provision

The Challenge

Scoping a full plaza with an understaffed team

Harrington Builders is a growing general contractor that also runs a steel fabrication business. They are building a ground up medical plaza in Markham, Ontario, and the accuracy of the whole bid rested on getting the scope right.

Biggest job yet

Earlier jobs came down to five or six trades. The plaza needed a scope for every trade from earthwork and civil through structure, mechanical, masonry and finishes.

No spare capacity

Harrington had two estimators, and was still hiring a project manager and another estimator. Nobody was free to take on a job this size.

Scope written by hand

Every trade package was built manually, working through the PDF with the search tool.

Conflicts left unraised

Where the drawings and the specification did not line up, only a handful went back to the consultant as questions. The rest were priced on an assumption.

On who absorbs a scope gap when one slips through:

“Most of the time the GC has to somehow bear the responsibility, because you want your trades finishing their scope of work without giving you delays or problems.”

— Phil Vella, Director of Construction, Harrington Builders

The Solution

Why Harrington Builders turned to Provision

Scoped the project in an hour. Scope Agent read the live set and produced scope across every trade package.
The advice of an expert estimator. Getting a trade’s scope right took an estimator who knew that trade well and had read every drawing. Harrington could not hire one for every trade it was bidding. Scope Agent gave that read across all of them, and their estimators took it from there.
Easy to verify. Harrington’s owner and its estimating team went through the output together, package by package, before anything went out to trades.

Harrington’s New Process

A first read across every trade

Found scope, even when it was not clear. Notes buried on the sheets, details that appeared only in a section, work the specification assumed somebody was carrying. Each item cited the sheet or spec section it came from.
Caught work no trade would carry. The scope turned up waterproofing work, and no waterproofing contractor was bidding the job. Nobody would have priced it, and the cost would have landed on Harrington. Because it surfaced before the bid closed, Harrington was able to put the work out and have a trade carry it.
Assigned work where trades overlap. Some paving contractors also did concrete, some foundation contractors did not excavate. Each item was assigned to the right trade package, so nobody assumed the other trade had it.
Flagged drawing and spec conflicts. RFI Agent read one against the other. Harrington raised those with the owner and the consultants as questions, instead of carrying an interpretation into the bid.

Their ROI

What the two agents took off the bid

A preconstruction desk with the drawing set open across two screens

What Harrington has seen:

50+ conflicts raised. Settled while the packages were still being priced, rather than argued over after award.
A full week down to two business days. By hand, Harrington put a package this size at five days minimum. Working from the Scope Agent output, the read through took about two business days.
Gaps caught before they cost anything. Harrington’s last scope dispute cost $10,000 to $20,000 to settle on a half million dollar job. With Scope Agent, it was caught before the bids came in and the same gap cost one question to the consultant.

On how much more work the company can take on:

“You double it, because you’re able to use fewer resources going through scope. That brings in more projects.”

— Phil Vella, Director of Construction, Harrington Builders

See how pre-construction teams are boosting win rates and profits with Provision

Book a Demo
$100 billion in project value reviewed with Provision
Get through pursuits 2x faster