Clear to See: How Balfour Beatty is Using Clearstory to Deliver Real-Time Cost Transparency on Projects

Balfour Beatty’s California team adopted Clearstory to streamline Change Orders, cutting admin burden while giving teams and clients real-time cost transparency and data-driven insights.

In the construction industry, Change Order management is vital to keeping complex projects on track. When managing dozens of trade partners, navigating design changes and maintaining  cost transparency with clients, it’s important to use strong systems to organize all the ins and outs of a project.

Balfour Beatty project teams in California have implemented a new system: Clearstory, a Change Order management platform used by General Contractors, Subcontractors and Owners alike. So far, the platform has streamlined the process of submitting and tracking Subcontractor Change Orders while increasing transparency between all stakeholders.

A Great Idea

Senior Project Manager Aaron Croteau initially identified that Clearstory could streamline the Change Order process. Specifically, he recognized the platform’s capability to make tracking Change Order Requests (CORs) and Time and Material (T&M) tags more efficient. “These are often sent by email or written on paper forms and not always digitized quickly or correctly,” Croteau explains. “One of our Subcontractors told us about Clearstory for Change Order management and we saw the potential it had to slim down our inboxes and make sure the correct people get the CORs, COR logs, and T&M tickets.”

Clearstory’s core product is a live Change Order Log that creates instant transparency across teams, paired with simple but powerful workflows to capture field-directed extra work, conduct pricing exercises, and streamline Change Order review and approvals to eliminate  paper T&M tickets, reduce days aging, and give all parties real-time visibility into project risk.

After working with the Balfour Beatty Information Technology department and Construction Technology professionals to fully vet the program, Croteau’s project team constructing Sierra College’s new instructional building tested out Clearstory by working with trade partners who had experience with it..

“Our first impression was that it was going to close the loop on our Change Order process,” says Dan Shirkey, Director of Digital Adoption at Balfour Beatty. “It was evident from the beginning that it was going to make it easier to stay up to date on our COR logs and keep everything organized and in one place.”

"It was evident from the beginning that Clearstory was going to make it easier to stay up to date on our COR logs and keep everything organized and in one place."

Dan Shirkey
Director of Digital Adoption,
Balfour Beatty

Another advantage is that Clearstory integrates with Procore, Balfour Beatty’s project management software. Rather than transferring COR logs and T&M tickets created on another platform, information uploaded to Clearstory automatically populates into Procore.

Tools of the Trade

After a successful pilot, the California team has expanded the use of Clearstory on select other projects in California, with plans to introduce it to more projects and partners in the near future. While some Balfour Beatty Subcontractors had experience working in Clearstory, for many it was a new platform. Implementation required some forward-thinking during the contracting phase: projects that use Clearstory include a clause in contracts that Subcontractors must provide their foreperson with a device to access the platform while in the field.

To ensure all partners would be comfortable using the platform, project teams partnered with Clearstory to conduct training sessions and provide technical support throughout a project’s duration. These trainings not only teach trade partners how  to create and maintain COR logs and T&M tickets, but  also show them the full breadth of opportunities within the platform. For example, Subcontractors can upload their cost data and cost matrix and determine the cost impacts of additional time logged..

Client Clarity

Perhaps one of the biggest wins with Clearstory is the ability to provide more cost transparency to Balfour Beatty clients. The platform ensures all CORs are tracked in real time, eliminating the possibility of unexpected costs cropping up at the end of the project. “Using this platform gives us the ability to be much more confident in projecting out our potential costs,” says Shirkey. “Our clients can be confident that we are actively tracking costs as they accrue so there won’t be any surprises.”

With Clearstory’s Change Notifications feature, Balfour Beatty teams can distribute design changes and set deadlines for cost impacts, keeping unexpected costs top of mind. Balfour Beatty teams also receive notifications any time a COR is updated, eliminating the possibility of any costs being pushed through without notice.

Actionable Data

As Balfour Beatty’s use of Clearstory expands across projects and locations, Aaron looks forward to using the tracking capabilities: Clearstory can compare costs across projects and recognize trends over time, which will come in especially handy when choosing trade partners for future projects. “We can look at a specific partner and compare their Change Orders across several different projects,” Croteau says. “We can look at past performance and recognize if our partners have a history of submitting more or less Change Orders over the course of a project and how their final costs may differ from their projected costs.”

Croteau hopes that as they gather more data, they will be able to use that information to make informed decisions about trade partnerships. Rather than relying solely on projections, he and his teammates will be able to set more accurate expectations with those trade partners and clients alike.

It’s clear to see that the platform has advantages for a smoother Change Order process. As Balfour Beatty’s use of the platform expands across more projects in California and beyond, the company is looking forward to Clearstory helping further its pursuit of building leaner and more efficiently while continuing to foster and grow trusted relationships with clients and trade partners.

Reprinted from the original post with permission from Balfour Beatty.