Procore Estimating Makes Grimard More Competitive by Leveraging Estimating Data Throughout the Entire Project Lifecycle
February 9, 2022
Grimard produces estimates 3X faster with Procore.
The Challenge
Canada-based Grimard is involved in multiple complex and large-scale projects with many different stakeholders. They needed a way to efficiently communicate with these stakeholders, share project details with them, receive feedback, and digitize processes that were previously done manually. They also needed a way to accurately estimate project costs. The company needed a way to bring all of its disparate parts together into a single system. They turned to Procore.
The Solution
Procore Estimating gave Grimard a way to efficiently communicate with stakeholders and offer full transparency in terms of project costs and planning. It also allowed Grimard to utilize historical data to make project estimates more accurate. Grimard was able to streamline its bidding process, which made it more attractive to potential clients and helped the business grow.
The Results
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Fast estimates
Procore Estimating helped Grimard produce estimates almost three times faster than it was previously able to.
Data visibility
Grimard is connecting estimating to its construction management platform. It could bridge the gap between estimating and construction teams to give stakeholders real-time visibility into mission-critical data for their rapidly evolving and complex projects.
More accuracy
By using Procore, Grimard can analyze historic project actuals to deliver more accurate estimates—ultimately empowering them to bid more competitively.
“Procore keeps improving communication between estimators and project teams. We used to waste time re-creating budgets at the beginning of a project, but now with Procore Estimating we just hit transfer to Procore.”
Sebastian Grimard
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
Finding the right digital estimation solution during difficult times
When the pandemic lockdowns started in March of 2020, Grimard had to decide whether to shut down its operations entirely or implement a new platform with people who were now freely available for work. Grimard had been considering utilizing Procore for some time and decided to make the leap.
“We started looking for a digital estimation solution. We chose a tool called Esticom. One major criterion was the ability to integrate Estimation with our project management platform, which is Procore,” says Grimard. “We made the right move, because less than a year after our implementation, guess what? Procore bought Esticom.”
Grimard digitized its business to streamline processes for its over 400 annual projects
“I’d say a challenge, which may be even more pressing in the construction industry, is very slow progress towards digitalization. By comparison, manufacturing made the move much earlier. It’s always surprising that even some of the world’s largest EPCM firms are still using paper and Excel to manage projects,” says Grimard.
“Clients are demanding more details. They’re lifting quality requirements. And all that for the same cost, obviously. This is putting a lot of pressure on our people and engineering companies, construction companies just like ourselves, the systems, and our people.”
Grimard needed to implement a system for real-time communication with shareholders that was centralized and easy to use, and they also needed a place to keep all of the project data so everyone could easily access it. Procore offered the solutions Grimard was looking for.
Procore Estimating helps Grimard get bids out faster
“Everything has to be fast and accurate. Information flows constantly and rapidly, and this is even more true today. It can take three days to open a bid project, print drawings, and manually track all changes––that’s not true anymore,” says Grimard. “A client wants better visibility with details. As a business operator, we want accurate estimation data, and we want it backed with execution actuals and current material costs. Essentially, we want to close the loop from execution, back to estimation.”
Grimard had four requirements for adopting a new estimation system. It had to be efficient and easy to access in the field, have historical actuals to make future estimates more accurate, the ability to connect financials to work processes, and the ability to accurately pass project information between preconstruction and construction teams without delay. Procore Estimating has been all that and more for Grimard.
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