During This Case, You Will Learn How Touchplan

• Allowed construction to finish on time and, in some cases, early
• Kept the entire project team aligned despite new challenges brought on by Covid
• Reduced time in pull planning meetings allowing workers to attack tasks faster

Batson-Cook Construction, a General Construction, Design-Build, and Construction Management firm located in the southeastern United States, was charged with a significant renovation of a hospital in Canton, Georgia.

The project consisted of several phases, including new construction and the expansion of an active 12,000 SF Surgery Department. The Batson-Cook team knew that doing the best work on schedule and budget while not disrupting vital hospital operations would require detailed planning and collaboration. So, Batson Cook turned to Touchplan.

The work on the operating room included adding one hybrid OR, three regular ORs, a Cysto Room, 16 pre-op rooms, a new staff lounge, two locker rooms, and a new pharmacy. All of this work would happen while the existing operating rooms of the hospital remained functioning.

Additionally, much of the work would happen in what the Batson-Cook team described as “behind the red line.” That meant that workers would have to scrub in and wear extensive PPE, including protective suits and shoe coverings, so as not to cause any issues for the hospital.

“When you are dealing with a construction project that included this many details, Touchplan became very helpful in speeding up the process of developing weekly pull plans,” said Alison Shaw, Engineer at Batson-Cook Construction. “Touchplan makes pull planning a quicker process; everybody could make their activities, set their durations, and then we could all work together to put those tickets in order, which saves hours.”

Completing Detailed Construction While Keeping Patients Safe

As construction progressed, the work brought the construction team closer to patients as more work was being done behind the red line. In that instance, the team could use Touchplan on a day-by-day and even an hour-by-hour basis. The team could do this due to all the information the hospital provided related to construction.

“Touchplan was an incredible success for us, especially when we got into the patient space,” said Superintendent Bobby Hartley. “Once you can put all that information in Touchplan and have everything in front of you, you can move it around and navigate. Things make sense in terms of who goes where based on durations and staffing and everything else. So, it worked out well.”

Adoption from the Beginning

The Batson-Cook construction team working on this project were veteran pull planners, using sticky notes on a wall. That experience made the transition to Touchplan easier, and Batson-Cook and their specialty trades were big fans from the beginning.

“Everyone loved using Touchplan. In the older approach of having sticky notes across every wall, there is a good chance that something could get missed, and then you have to try and realign things on the wall,” said Hartley. “Before adopting Touchplan, because we made sticky notes, people would stop coming to meetings, especially if they were behind and had to get up and move 25 sticky notes. Now it is so much easier for everyone to update their information, be it on-site or remotely — there is no reason for us not to have the most up-to-date information. That is one of the biggest benefits to me.”

Keeping Construction on Track Despite Covid Challenges.

One of the most significant returns that Touchplan delivered to Batson-Cook during this hospital project was keeping construction moving despite the ever-changing Covid landscape. Touchplan allowed the project team to make necessary adjustments to construction and keep the project on schedule.

“In the heat of Covid, we were able to keep this project on track,” Hartley added. “That was probably the best benefit of using Touchplan. With all the challenges that Covid presented, people could continue to pump out information and sequence workflow even if they could not be on the jobsite. We could make the necessary changes and keep work moving by swapping out crews in some circumstances. Touchplan helped us finish this project on time, and in the instance of one floor of work, we were able to finish a month early in the middle of Covid when we had a lot of workers out sick.”

Our relationship with Batson-Cook has produced some mutually beneficial results, including:

• Completing the project on schedule and some sections a month early
• Keeping work moving in an active hospital despite disruptions from Covid
• Reducing pull planning meetings from hours to as little as 30-minutes allowing workers to attack tasks in certain areas quicker