How Gilbane is Using Clearstory to Save 1000+ Hours in Change Order Processing Time on the IU Health Indianapolis Hospital

Designed as a “destination medical center,” the IU Health Downtown Indianapolis Hospital features 884 in-patient rooms, 44 operating rooms, 50 elevators, and 2 helipads. And with a construction budget eclipsing $2 billion, it’s also the largest hospital under construction in the US, and the perfect proving ground for the joint venture of Gilbane Building Company and Wilhem Construction to validate the early success Gilbane has seen on other projects using Clearstory. 

“When we started the project, we were looking at options on how to streamline out-of-contract costs,” says Gilbane project engineer Meya Angeles. “Change Orders can be unpleasant, and since we were using Clearstory successfully on several other projects to avoid that situation, we thought it would be a great test to unleash it on a project of this size.”

Created by former General Contractors to modernize how the industry communicates, tracks, and resolves out-of-contract work, Clearstory’s digital T&M Tags and Universal COR Log provide real-time stakeholder alignment and automated workflows to eliminate carbon copy T&M Tickets and static COR logs, helping project teams stay on the same page, avoid risk, and understand cost impacts.

As it turns out, the deployment of Clearstory on the IU Health JV has delivered levels of stakeholder transparency, productivity, and value that can be applied to Gilbane projects regardless of size and scope.

Clearstory for Projects of All Sizes

“On a job this size, we’d have to hire a full time position help to track T&M tickets and Change Order Requests for every revision and every comment back and forth,” Angeles says. “The great thing about Clearstory is that every Change Order is instantly logged by PCI number and by subcontractor, and the PDF lives right there on the line item. That's thousands of hours of manual document management that we don't have to do anymore.”

Mega-projects like the IU Health Hospital usually meant Gilbane would hire two admin personnel–one to manage T&M Tickets and one to manage Change Order Requests–at an average total cost of $180K across a two-year build out. On smaller projects where PMs manage out-of-contract costs themselves, Angeles thinks Clearstory can be even more of a productivity game-changer.

“Clearstory has been really helpful with the JV because anyone can see the status of any change at any time, but Clearstory works great on projects of all sizes,” she says. “It provides clear communication between everyone involved with Change Orders in the field or in the office to make sure costs are legit, efficiently submitted, and approved. It’s an honest picture of what we all agree on, all in one spot where updates happen in real-time. I’m a fan.”

“Clearstory provides clear communication with everyone involved with Change Orders in the field or in the office to make sure costs are legit, efficiently submitted, and approved. It’s an honest picture of what we all agree on, all in one convenient spot where updates can happen in real-time. I’m a fan.”

Meya Angeles

Project Engineer, Gilbane

Streamlined Pricing and Fast Field Adoption

Clearstory’s supercharged workflows also extend to pricing exercises, providing one-click bulletin distribution to all IU Health Specialty Contractors and an instant log of cost impacts and ROMs as they’re submitted.

“Clearstory makes it so easy to quickly capture the big costs as opposed to digging through emails,” Angeles says. “That helps me as we track the total cost of bulletins to make sure everything has been reflected correctly in CMiC. It’s just an easy, complete, and comprehensive overview that helps us and our trade partners, too.”

Indeed, Specialty Contractors on the IU Health project were already armed with iPads and quick to adopt Clearstory for electronic signatures, real-time visibility into Change Order Request status, and the faster payments that came along with it.

“The great thing about Clearstory is that it works hard to get Change Orders processed and closed for everyone involved in the project,” Angeles says, adding that visibility will be essential during the multi-year JV. “If anyone new needs to take charge of change management on a project, everything has got to be good to go. You’ve got to have the visibility to do the job right. That’s why I use Clearstory.”

About Gilbane

Founded in 1870 and still a privately held, family-owned company, Gilbane Building Company provides a full slate of construction services – from preconstruction planning and integrated consulting capabilities to comprehensive construction management, general contracting, design-build, and facility management service for clients across various markets.