Kajima Building & Design Group (KDB) is one of the leading design-build general contractors in the USA. Headquartered out of Atlanta, Georgia, KDB is listed on the ENR top 400 GCs and is widely known for its innovation and fully integrated design, engineering, and construction capabilities.
KBD Group designs and constructs manufacturing, distribution and supply chain, food and beverage, mission-critical, and interior projects across the USA. With offices located across major cities in the USA, KBD Group was looking for a workforce intelligence solution to deliver real-time, cloud-based project and people insights across the enterprise.
With an emphasis on resource planning across multiple offices, KDB Group turned to Bridgit Bench, the leading construction workforce intelligence solution, to streamline the planning process. They were also looking to gain forward-looking insight into workforce utilization to help make planning resources more predictive than reactive.
The Challenge
Before using Bridgit Bench, the KDB Group team used individual spreadsheets to organize their resource planning process. “The spreadsheets worked for a day or in the moment,” said Jim Goodwin, Senior Vice President of Construction at Kajima Building & Design Group, “but that method could not share, update, look ahead, and maintain.”
As KDB Group grows, maintaining an accurate resource plan across multiple offices has become increasingly difficult. Their team needed a solution that could help them consolidate and share their people and project data across multiple offices. On top of improving transparency and accessibility across their offices, KDB Group was also looking to gain forward-looking insight to understand project demand better and create a people-first approach to resource planning.
The Solution
Once KDB Group knew they needed to abandon their spreadsheet-driven approach to resource management, they began evaluating different options. They needed a solution that was not only built specifically for construction but could also centralize their people and project data across multiple offices. Their search for the right solution led them to Bridgit Bench, the construction industry’s top resource management solution and leading provider of actionable workforce intelligence.
“Bridgit Bench has helped us stay organized with current project team assignments and understand upcoming project assignment requirements. Maintaining current status and building up potential project team requirements has helped our organization grow and better understand our staffing needs.”
Jim Goodwin, Senior Vice President of Construction at Kajima Building & Design Group
Once implemented, the team at KDB Group started seeing the benefits of an industry-specific resource management tool immediately. “Bridgit Bench has provided clarity and organization to our project staffing process,” explains Goodwin, “we now have real-time availability that stays current.”
While Bridgit Bench is helping KDB Group streamline the planning process, it’s also allowing for greater visibility across their management team. “As new projects come up, Bridgit Bench helps us easily build a project team template that our management group can see,” explains Goodwin. “We use this template to show upcoming staffing needs that must be staffed or assigned.”
“We also appreciate the sharing and collaboration that comes with a focused web and mobile-based application like this. We highly recommend Bridgit Bench for other leading general contractors.”
Jim Goodwin, Senior Vice President of Construction at Kajima Building & Design Group
On top of having greater control over the transparency of their resource strategy, KDB Group values the forward-looking insight that Bridgit bench provides. Using the forecasting dashboard and workforce utilization reports, Goodwin explains that “Bridgit Bench has helped us stay organized with current and upcoming project assignment requirements.”
This insight also helps KDB Group make informed recruitment decisions when resource demands exceed their capacity, allowing them greater control over their growth as a company. Goodwin explains that “keeping a current status and building up potential project team requirements has helped our organization grow and better understand our staffing needs.”
On top of streamlining its data maintenance, KDB Group is also leveraging the phase-based project planning available in Bridgit Bench. They can now quickly build project teams for each specific phase of the project lifecycle, and updating plans when project and phase dates shift is now a breeze.
