During this case, your will learn how Touchplan:
- Allow trades to appropriately staff their work
- Maintained efficiency to keep the project on schedule
- Kept construction moving despite supply chain disruptions
When Suffolk Construction was engaged to build a high-end, three-building luxury resort hotel in a remote Florida location, they knew it would require extensive planning supported by detailed construction planning software.
The Sunseeker Resort will have 500 hotel rooms, 300 extended-stay suites across two buildings, and a multitude of high-end amenities. The construction site constantly remains active with 800 plus workers on any given day, and the project will be completed within the next 12 months.
The Suffolk team knew construction planning software was essential to making coordinating workforce and resources much smoother.
“Using Touchplan makes it easy for us to show all the subcontractors what they need to be doing on this substantial jobsite,” said Kyle Lampitt, Senior Project Manager for Suffolk Construction. “It’s a phenomenal tool that allows you to visually show the path forward and the resources required to obtain the path to completion based on the input provided by the contractor.”
Touchplan has also been essential in enhancing communication on this rather large jobsite, which has had as many as six swing cranes on the site at one time. The team uses Touchplan in weekly coordination meetings. Then three-week look-ahead schedules are sent out so that specialty trades can plan their weeks, order necessary materials, and allocate workforce.
“Touchplan is a great tool for all of us to communicate,” said Matthew Pledger, Senior Superintendent for Suffolk Construction, working on the Sunseeker Project. “When we gather for weekly coordination meetings, Touchplan gets the specialty trades communicating with each other, which gets them working more efficiently. They can see the whole process, not just their scope of work. By having a better understanding of who’s ahead of them and coming in behind them, they understand how the pace of their work impacts others.”
Completion on the Horizon
With just about a year left before, “heads are supposed to hit beds,” there isn’t much time for challenges or curveballs on the Sunseeker project. Using Touchplan allows the team leaders to keep workers busy when the occasional delay may happen by resequencing events in Touchplan.
“Having Touchplan has 100% benefitted us, said Pledger. “If a certain material has not arrived due to supply chain issues, I can work with our scheduler in the master schedule and brainstorm areas where we can have people keep working. We then build that out in Touchplan and adjust the overall master schedule. It’s a more efficient and faster way to keep things moving and not halt the work. Touchplan has saved us time and money and easily paid for itself.”
Alternative Uses
In addition to keeping the construction of this massive luxury resort on schedule, the Suffolk team also uses the Touchplan software to manage and track deliveries of materials to the project. They also use Touchplan to track procurement which fosters coordination and communications between superintendents and project managers, ensuring materials are available at the site at the right time.
Our relationship with Suffolk Construction has produced some mutually beneficial results, including:
- Developing weekly work plans to ensure that specialty trades are staffing their work appropriately and meeting deadlines
- Maintaining efficiency and coordination to meet the project completion deadlin
- The ability to keep work happening despite any disruptions due to supply chain or procurement
