Getting Projects Off the Ground
In government operations, efficiency and adaptability are often… elusive.
Red tape and outdated processes can hinder progress, making even the easiest tasks feel cumbersome. However, there are a few instances where innovation has broken through barriers and changed the way things are done.
In this Projectmates Client Spotlight, we sat down with Master Sergeant Kirk Sherry to take a look at how the New Jersey Air National Guard was able to embrace technology and get its construction projects off the ground faster.
Controlling Construction Documents
The Air National Guard has numerous responsibilities including maintaining well-trained and well-equipped fighting units, as well as infrastructure administration. To fulfill these duties, it regularly undertakes facility projects including new construction, acquisitions, expansion, rehabilitation, and conversion.
Like many other governmental entities, the New Jersey Air National Guard was limping through projects the old-fashioned way: spreadsheets and email. The inefficiencies inherent in these outdated methods were evident, leading to manual processes, inaccuracies, and labor-intensive tasks.
Master Sergeant Kirk Sherry, a contract specialist for the New Jersey Air National Guard, said tracking down documents using their old system was maddening. “The government is notoriously slow to adapt and implement change. It was very archaic,” said Sherry. “Files were shared on network drives and documents were everywhere. Sometimes there were multiple spreadsheets tracking the exact same thing.”
Projectmates, designed with Owners in mind, surpassed the capabilities of those legacy software solutions and provided a single, user-friendly platform for managing the Air National Guard’s construction documents.
“Our team members have found it intuitive and easy to use,” said Kirk. “Even our base civil engineer has access, so if there is a problem with the construction project, he doesn’t have to go to his contractor’s drives or my shared drives. It’s not stuck in some email. You know, at a commander’s level, he can go in and say this is what’s going on. I need to make a decision on this.”
Increasing Accountability
This new centralized approach not only simplified document control but also reduced the risk of task mismanagement by creating approval processes for better accountability.
With Projectmates, the once-difficult task of tracking project progress became streamlined, providing real-time insights and eliminating unnecessary delays.
“We’re able to say, ‘Look, they sat on this document for forty days. This one for thirty days and this one’s already been on the desk for ninety days. This is a problem,’” said Kirk. “It’s added a ton of transparency and it’s automated a lot of our old manual processes.”
Kirk also explained that Projectmates equips the Air National Guard with discussion tools and audit trails. This enables him to precisely track progress made or discussions held on any specific project.
“If it’s project-wide discussions, like, maybe scheduling issues or we opened up this wall and there’s another layer of insulation behind it, I require them to try to keep as much of those discussions inside Projectmates. It then becomes part of the project record and if we need to go back and look at the entire conversation, that record is right there.”
Fostering Collaboration
The benefits for the Air National Guard extended beyond efficiency and accountability.
Kirk emphasized Projectmates’ role in fostering collaboration and continuity within project teams, particularly in the face of personnel turnover.
“I might get notified of a short-notice deployment where I’m going to be gone for three months. The contractor is not used to emailing something to me, they’re used to uploading it in Projectmates and notifying all the contracting officers. So, it allows for a lot of continuity when your team changes throughout the project,” he explained. “It also speeds up our invoicing process and gets those contractors paid quicker, which keeps them happier.”
Some of that collaboration is made possible because Projectmates is a web-based solution with apps for iOS and Android. Contractors can use it in the field and managers can use it in the office, or as Kirk points out, even at home.
“What’s nice is if I have some stuff to do at home at night or some questions to ask, I can log on from my home computer. I’m not tied to just my government computer to use it,” he noted. “I can just open up the app or as I get back to my truck on the job site. I don’t have to go back to the computer. I can sit there and I can tell you there are ten guys on-site, and I can tell you what they’re doing.”
Flying into the Future
Construction professionals in the New Jersey Air National Guard, along with several other National Guard branches, have successfully overcome the challenges of outdated practices by embracing technology and leveraging Projectmates. This has led to a construction program that is more efficient, transparent, and accountable. By providing tools for efficient document control and accessibility, increased accountability, and enhanced collaboration, Projectmates is committed to empowering the New Jersey Air National Guard to achieve its vision of operational excellence.
