How Devcon Construction is Capturing Change Order Risk to Improve Forecasting Accuracy at Elco Yards

Resolved out-of-scope Subcontractor costs in real-time

Streamlined and enhanced collaboration between stakeholders

Accelerated the COR lifecycle and closed the COR Gap

Delivered standardization and timeliness to T&M and COR documentation

Change Order Mastery

Devcon Construction implemented Clearstory on the $500 million Elco Yards project to gain accurate forecasting and streamlined workflows for enhanced project adaptability.

Project Spotlight

Devcon is the largest builder in Silicon Valley at over $2B per year, and was selected by life science real estate investment trust IQHQ as the General Contractor for Elco Yards, an 8-acre redevelopment of six city blocks in Redwood City, CA. The project development includes construction of four new buildings, 715,000 square feet of life science space, 28,840 square feet of retail, and 540 apartments.

Reducing Change Order Risk with Clearstory

With a project cost nearing $600 million and a scope encompassing the redevelopment of six city blocks (including demolition of four of those blocks), the 8-acre Elco Yards life science campus will redefine the downtown core of Redwood City, CA. Just 25 miles south of San Francisco, the LEED Silver project includes construction of four new buildings with below grade parking, public infrastructure improvements, two pedestrian bridges, a 5,000-square-foot restaurant, and site amenities.

To execute projects of this scale and magnitude, moving fast in complex environments is the name of the game. Selected as General Contractor for Elco Yards, Devcon Construction implemented Clearstory to reduce Change Order risk for all stakeholders and provide a full, real-time understanding of cost exposure.

“Clearstory is easy to adopt, and gets Change Orders processed and paid faster,” says Devcon project executive Daniel Alfaro, “And since Clearstory helps our Subcontractors stay organized and timely, it provides the visibility I need to forecast my budget with accuracy and confidence.”

How Clearstory Automates and Streamlines Manual and Error-Prone Processes

On this project, Devcon has made Clearstory a project requirement where no Trade Partner COR is valid until it is posted on Clearstory. By making this a requirement, Devcon can access a Trade Partner COR log instantly and always have alignment with each Trade Partner on outstanding COR risk.

Traditionally this process meant emailing subcontractors to request updated COR logs, attempting to find CORs sent through separate email threads, identifying COR responses that were still outstanding, and accounting for field-directed work being tracked on T&M tickets. This manual process consumed hours and left exposure to unforeseen risk.

“Without Clearstory there’s always this looming fear of surprise Subcontractor costs that are going to show up in my court months after the fact,” Alfaro says. “With Clearstory, everything is standardized and I can quickly review labor and hours for validity, make rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimations, and then forecast as accurately as possible.”

Daniel A headshot

“Clearstory shortens the COR lifecycle from months to days, providing the ability to react quickly by keeping visibility into Change Order exposure as current as humanly possible”

Daniel Alfaro

Project Executive, Devcon Construction

Better Visibility, Better Forecasting

For Alfaro, standardization and timeliness are the key COR metrics that Clearstory delivers to Devcon on the Elco Yards project. By having real-time visibility into all COR exposure, Devcon teams can be confident that all of their COR exposure is contained in their forecast and reduce the risk of surprises.

Clearstory's user-friendly interface has translated to quick adoption by trade partners on the Elco Yards project, ensuring they consistently submit CORs through the platform. “With the visibility and reporting in Clearstory, we can say if it is not on this log, you’re not getting paid for it,” Alfaro says. “If it’s not sent in Clearstory, which is really easy to use, it’s rejected, making that conversation very simple.”

Part of Devcon’s service for clients is reviewing and validating Change Orders to ensure the client is being charged fairly for project changes. Traditionally, this is a manual and tedious process. With Clearstory, all PDFs can be instantly opened without leaving the software and the teams can ask questions, highlight parts of the PDF and mark things, revise, and resubmit. This streamlined process along with instant documentation allows their team to cycle through Change Order Review dramatically fast.

“The easiest thing about Clearstory is that when a Sub submits a Change Order, it gets immediately logged and I can instantly begin my review process and figure out where to put it in our internal budget without having to save it in a file folder, download it from my email, and all the other manual steps,” Alfaro says.”Clearstory is great for my subs because ultimately, it gets them paid faster.”

Better Outcomes for Clients, Trade Partners and Devcon

With the boost in forecasting accuracy and processing speed, Devcon can help their clients make proactive decisions at Elco Yards. “We don’t ever want to give back a ton of contingency money after having said no to design changes that the client wanted to make,” Alfaro explains. “If you have a high level of confidence in your forecast, you can make decisions like that.”

And if design changes do occur, Clearstory enables the Elco Yards team to optimize its RFI process and communicate Change Orders with subs en masse, rather than relying on disjointed email threads. “What Clearstory has allowed me to do is really clearly and effectively communicate with our Subcontractors,” Alfaro says. “It has the ability to shorten the COR lifecycle from months down to days, providing the ability to react quickly and keep us all on the same page.”

As the leading General Contractor in Silicon Valley, technology is in Devcon’s roots. By leveraging Clearstory, they are driving efficiency with their teams to focus on value-added work and avoid the tedious administrative tasks that can cause frustration, burnout, and blind spots.