Read how Touchplan's software platform helped Flintco continue its Lean journey by adding a digital solution.
During This Case, You Will Learn How Touchplan
- Allowed Flintco to continue its Lean journey efficiently.
- Helped Flintco from losing traction on projects despite pain points that arose from the pandemic.
- Made it easier to report to senior management & clients on all projects.
Flintco has been a user of Touchplan since 2020, and an enterprise client since 2022. Before that, the construction services firm, like many of its contemporaries, was doing its planning the “typical” way by using sticky notes, whiteboards, and spreadsheets.
Justin Spafford and Bryan Bova of the company’s Arkansas team were starting a large construction project that would be too much for traditional pull planning.
“In preparing for this mega project, we had toured a similar project that was doing planning with sticky notes,” said Justin Spafford, Sr. Project Manager for Flintco. “When we stepped inside the construction trailer, every wall was covered in sticky notes. We knew to continue our Lean journey efficiently, we would need a digital solution.”
The Flintco Arkansas team started using Touchplan on most of its large and small projects, including a significant three-year construction project. Touchplan has proved to be effective and has received terrific buy-in from specialty trades. The relationship of Touchplan and Flintco grew from there.
When Covid-19 started impacting construction projects across the US, the Flintco team knew they had to keep their project moving. Touchplan played a crucial role in alleviating the pain points that came with the pandemic.
“We did not stop working,” said Spafford. “We were fortunate as most of our projects already had Touchplan initiated, so we didn’t lose traction despite the distance and remote challenges. We also had other projects around the company see the value of the Touchplan platform and jump on the bandwagon, which led to adopting the software platform enterprise-wide.”
User Friendliness & Data Ease Pain Points
One of the challenges Flintco has overcome is getting buy-in from trade partners. Traditional Lean and pull planning can result in lengthy meetings (4-6 hours) and numerous phase plans. Implementing Touchplan has allowed Flintco to expedite many processes.
“Touchplan is extremely user-friendly, which makes the adoption by the specialty trades much easier,” said Spafford.
Flintco Project Manager Bryan Bova added, “The other place we are seeing some fantastic benefits is that during our phase planning, rather than having to write out numerous sticky notes, we just enter it into Touchplan, which makes the process much faster and more efficient. That allows us to talk about the flow of that area or milestone that we are planning with a lot more specific detail.”
On any construction project, the ability to report data are vital to success. Touchplan has made that process for Flintco much easier.
“One of the biggest selling points for our team in Arkansas was reporting,” said Bova. “Reports, the weekly work plan, PPC, and all that tracking is just a click away, as opposed to the alternative of planning and preparing spreadsheets with hours spent each week updating the information.”
Spafford added, “The reporting features of Touchplan are not only important to our trade partners but also for our executive leadership, and our clients. The dashboard is an amazing feature. As a Senior Project Manager, I have multiple projects. Touchplan allows me to quickly get an overview on the health of those projects and report upward.”
Saving and Reallocating Time
Another benefit of Touchplan is the impact it has on saving time. The team analyzed the time it took to complete manual processes versus using a digital solution, like Touchplan.
“That is how we got our executive leadership’s attention,” said Spafford. “It wasn’t just the monetary value but, more importantly, eliminating lost hours. We pushed for Touchplan because it gives us back time.”
Our realationship with Flintco has produced some mutually beneficial results, including:
- Helping younger office and project engineers understand the difference between the master schedule and what is needed on the jobsite
- The hours that were lost doing manual planning as opposed to using a platform like Touchplan
- Using Touchplan’s dashboard feature to easily report up to both clients and senior management