Each Crate & Barrel store is a one-of-a-kind design. Don't expect a cookie-cutter box when you visit any one of the company's 168 stores. Each store is a brand ambassador with a unique, complex design of clean lines, expansive glass walls, and open interiors in the neo-modernistic style.
John Moebes, AIA, Director of Construction at Crate & Barrel, spoke at COAA's Fall Leadership Conference this past week on his team's "Survival Mandate" to reduce capital investment 30-50% and reduce facility opening cycles 45%. Despite the difficult economy, the company has continued to build because it has adopted new strategies to cut capital investment and build time.
During his keynote session, titled "Lean It or Leave It! How Crate & Barrel Reduces Transaction Costs," Moebes outlined how Projectmates and BIM technology drastically reduce cost and project duration. Between 2006-2008, a typical building took 70 weeks to design and construct and cost millions to construct. Today, the same building takes 35 weeks to design and construct and costs about 55% of what it used to.
Moebes, who describes the construction industry's relationship with technology as generally dysfunctional, places a strong focus on the owner's need to reduce transaction costs of the AEC workflow, or the processes used to produce a building. If the processes are inefficient, the project costs more to build. In traditional construction processes that rely heavily on hardcopies, mail, and faxes, a lot of time and money is spent on redundant logs, forms, transmittals, storage, and archive costs for example.
Projectmates provides a centralized place for owners, architects, contractors, and other project stakeholders to collaborate online and gives owners strong oversight and project control. As Crate & Barrel demonstrates, Projectmates reduces project costs by eliminating many of the fees a company pays out. Moebes added, "All of these were charges to us in order to prove who had done what in a hardcopy world, but where was the value to the project?"
"What we noticed was within 12 months we had eliminated all the printing and shipping costs, except for permit sets, within our processes. A typical project was spending about $45 thousand dollars just to print and ship documents," said Moebes on using Projectmates to manage documents electronically.
Moebes discussed in detail three overarching benefits of using Projectmates to reduce the cost of handling data: 1) Increased transparency in project communications; 2) Streamlined workflow; 3) Reduced project expenses. He mentioned other value-added benefits including multiple project tracking, executive project reports, cross-project performance reports, ball-in-court reminders, extremely secure, easy to backup and archive, and integrated email functionality.
"We have a very high sensitivity to the look of the facility…Each building we build is as important to us as the first building we ever built," said Moebes. Like Crate & Barrel, each new version of Projectmates reflects a high sensitivity to the needs of the owner in developing the best construction project management software.
”on the top right corner in Projectmates. Give it a try!
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