The challenge
Scaling preconstruction in a growing organization
Suffolk manages one of the largest portfolios in the country.
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In Boston alone, the company’s largest office, dozens of major projects are running concurrently that all require large project teams.
The pieces rarely aligned.
- Estimates were disconnected from the lifecycle of a project
- Workforce planning decisions were made without full visibility into how the project was intended to run.
“We used to use a simple Excel sheet to keep track of who might be available soon,” explains Steven Jennings, Project Manager and Operations Performance Manager at Suffolk.
For a 3,000+ person organization + contractors? That doesn’t scale.
Steven continues, “A staffing meeting would basically be: ‘This person’s job is finishing in a month. Who wants them next?’ People didn’t know what was next for them and projects were understaffed until someone happened to become available.”
It was an inefficient and reactive process where leadership teams spent hours verifying information and reconciling spreadsheets. Meanwhile, estimating teams were building project budgets without a fully integrated view of workforce availability.
So, they built something new.
The solution
Building a connected platform for preconstruction
Talk to Suffolk’s National Director of Preconstruction Scott Menard for more than a few minutes and he’ll articulate everything that a connected platform should be.
He muses about connected digital ecosystems — where data flows across the entire lifecycle of a project so teams can “use data when we need data for any use case.”
“The ideal state is putting in information one time and anyone who needs it has access to it.” – Scott Menard, National Director of Preconstruction at Suffolk
That top-down vision starts in Ediphi.
“Ediphi trains our teams to think from first principles,” says Brendan. “We can’t just say general conditions are a percentage of cost. We have to build the team that’s actually required to execute the project — when people start, when they roll off, and how they’re utilized.”
To make that level of detail practical across their dozens of projects and offices, Suffolk relies on Ediphi’s cloud-based estimating environment, where historical pricing data lives inside the cloud and estimators reference what worked before to model the unique conditions of every new project.
“If you solve for the budget first, you risk creating a plan that doesn’t actually work in the field,” Brendan explains. By structuring estimates this way, Ediphi produces something far more powerful than a cost breakdown: it creates a data model of the project itself.
From estimate to workforce planning
Bridgit utilizes the estimating work done in Ediphi to unlock high-performing teams across the portfolio:
- Roles required for the project
- Start and end dates for each role
- Utilization expectations
- Assigned personnel, when known
“The most granular unit of work in Ediphi is the exact same unit needed in Bridgit. That’s why the integration works so well.” – Brendan O’Riordan, Director of Portfolio Intelligence at Suffolk
(Because the data structures align so closely, Suffolk’s data team was able to integrate the systems very quickly, notes Scott)
Once an estimate is developed, workforce plans automatically appear in Bridgit, where operations leaders gain a portfolio-wide view of workforce needs.
This allows teams to see multiple projects, staffing roles, and employee availability in a single interface.
“As you build the estimate in Ediphi, you’re already thinking about the roles required for the job,” says Steven. “That information flows cleanly into Bridgit so we can see multiple projects and staffing plans in one place.”
From there, leadership teams can evaluate project team decisions based on, well, everything…
- Employee availability
- Relevant experience
- Project timelines
- Geographic proximity or travel preferences
- Budget
The impact
Smoother preconstruction, better project teams
The impact of Suffolk’s connected workflow is visible in the day-to-day lives of leadership teams.
Staffing discussions prior required large meetings reviewing spreadsheets and debating personnel assignments.
“If you’re not staffing him, I’m taking him!”
“Superintendent needed for April! Who’s got one?”
“Wait, thought she was finishing in March?”
“We would march through that every other week with 20 plus people in the room,” says Brendan. “We’d spend an hour or more going line by line through charts trying to figure out who was available.”
Those meetings look different now. Now, it’s just a handful of decision-makers reviewing what’s already in the system. Most decisions even happen before the meeting begins (shoutout to cloud software).
More importantly, Suffolk has eliminated the uncertainty.
Because projects are estimated in Ediphi using structured, programmatic cost models, staffing discussions in Bridgit start with a clear picture of what the job actually requires.
Building a process than can handle growth
Suffolk’s portfolio has grown rapidly in recent years.
Building 17.5-acre, multi-billion-dollar projects in LA, renovations of the most iconic casinos in Vegas; that kind of thing….
The systems they’ve chosen to use to manage preconstruction and workforce planning have played a critical role in ensuring that that growth remains profitable.
“Our revenue growth has been very rapid over the last five years,” Brendan O’Riordan says. “The tools and processes we’ve put in place enable that growth — but more importantly, they help make sure it’s profitable growth.”
With the Bridgit and Ediphi duo, Suffolk is actively:
- Building more realistic project budgets
- Assembling stronger project teams earlier
- Reducing staffing conflicts across projects
- And improving employee and contractor experience throughout
Even Suffolk’s People and Culture teams benefit from the increased visibility.
“Knowing where someone’s next project assignment is creates a much better experience for employees,” Brendan says with visible pride, “That visibility helps us support people throughout their careers.”
Data as the competitive advantage
Suffolk’s strategy of using Ediphi and Bridgit ensures that the intent in preconstruction doesn’t disappear once the project begins.
The estimate becomes the staffing plan. The staffing plan becomes the execution plan. And they both directly inform profitability from day one.
“Without tools like this, companies at our scale would be dead in the water.” – Scott Menard, Suffolk’s National Director of Preconstruction.
As Suffolk continues to expand nationwide, the ability to build on this connected platform has become their defining advantage.
If you’re looking to improve your planning tech stack, we’d be happy to show you how.
