Discover how a major German railway company leveraged Weagree’s contract automation and CLM solution to initiate and manage large, complex construction projects.
The context
In a continuously developing railway infrastructure, this German rail company faced the daunting challenge of managing complex construction agreements and countless deadlines (even a small construction project may easily consist of hundreds of deadlines).
For initiating, managing and completing every construction project, a contracting team or contract manager is assigned. Their responsibility is to scope, plan, monitor and manage the entire construction project from start to finish. In particular if the project entails numerous large subprojects (such as the construction of a tunnel, railway platform or railroad crossing), it is challenging to manage and meet all deadlines for all such subprojects and aligning it with the main construction project.
To manage all project tasks efficiently, and involve stakeholders and meet all deadlines timely, it is key that roles and responsibilities are well-specified in the construction project documentation.
While many construction projects are simple, all aspects may vary and all options must be anticipated in the templates.
The challenge
A construction project can easily result in delays, affecting the day-to-day life of citizens negatively and harming the company’s reputation. Any delays are typically caused by the complexity of the project planning, by unforeseeable circumstances or by particularities not written down adequately. Construction projects are no ordinary endeavours.
Optimising the process improves a construction project’s success. In every construction project, there are significant contracting-process-related challenges in two areas:
Contract creation:
Construction projects involve a multitude of construction agreements and related documentation, demanding accuracy, consistency, and manageability. A construction project consisting of a construction agreement with more than 250 schedules and a dozen of accompanying letters is no exception.
Involving numerous stakeholders with varying backgrounds and seniority levels complicates creating error-free project documentation. This becomes increasingly challenging where the same contract data are to be reused in multiple documents, or if those data are updated during the preparations or implementation of the project.
Although much of the construction project documentation is non-legal, Weagree’s contract automation proves to be a useful solution to also create, collaborate, manage and update those.
Contract deadline management:
Managing countless interdependent deadlines within construction projects is a complex task. As deadlines and their interdependencies evolve over time, it is challenging for the team to keep all stakeholders informed and prevent delays. Inconsistencies in contract amendments related to deadline changes increase the risk of disputes and negatively impact project timelines.
The negative consequences of contractual inconsistencies and unnecessarily complicated contract management are easy to spot in the frame of large construction projects.
The requirements
To manage large construction projects end-to-end, a streamlined process is needed, integrating multiple aspects of the project:
- Document creation. Creation of all construction project documentation, including an ongoing trail of amendments.
- Floating deadlines. Many deadlines depend on another deadline, both of which may change, and also the dependency may change.
- Auto-updated deadline notifications and tasks. The addressees of each such notification or task may change depending on progress (or lack of progress), task status or any delays.
- Approval workflows. Construction projects trigger numerous approval workflows, both for the construction agreement and, context-dependent, for amendments. Approvers must be able to communicate efficiently, and only once relevant.
- Super accessible project documentation. Super easy management and access to contracts and all project-related documentation, but only if authorised.
Weagree's solution
During a 100-day collaborative proof-of-concept journey, we developed a contracting solution that accelerated construction projects and solved the challenges at hand. Weagree’s solution:
- Automated document creation: The project documentation could be easily automated, ensuring accuracy and consistency throughout the process.
The Q&A-driven structuring of every construction project prevents that certain required documents, forms, certificates, or notices are being overlooked or created untimely. Weagree ascertains that always the latest template versions are used. - Deadline management: The resulting project documentation reflects applicable deadlines and dependencies on project milestones. This enables better coordination and project management. Project deadlines and their interdependencies are easily updated and modified, facilitating efficient management of project timelines.
- Timely notifications and tasks management: Project deadlines trigger tasks and notifications to project managers and other stakeholders in the project. Personalised notifications and tasks can be customised easily.
The result
Implementing an automation solution is a game-changer, delivering remarkable results:
- Streamlined contract creation: With the automated solution, the contracting team bid farewell to the days of manual document creation. Construction project teams and managers can generate complete construction project documentation, accurately and consistently. The setup also reinforces the use of up-to-date template versions (and template maintenance is easy).
- Improved contract deadline management: No more missed deadlines or confusion. Automation is an invaluable asset in managing the intricate web of floating deadlines. Project notifications are sent to project managers and stakeholders, keeping everyone in sync and preventing delays. Weagree provides a clear project roadmap, supporting responsible managers (and successors in their role, if any) through their projects with the required accuracy. Reporting to and monitoring by management requires one mouse-click.
- Increased compliance: Automation is the catalyst for greater efficiency and compliance. Smoothly triggered and processed approval workflows provide both improved communications and an audit trail to trace irregularities (if any!). Gone are the days of manual management, incomplete project documentation or struggling to keep up with legal requirements. The automated solution ensures that contracts comply strictly with the latest regulations, minimising the risk of non-compliance.
- More collaboration: The solution fosters collaboration among the team members. With one-click access to contracts and all related documentation (subject to being authorised), team members can find themselves seamlessly connected, share insights and work together towards stressless successful construction projects.
Overall, a construction project manager, their contracting team and the directors to whom they report experience a stressless meeting of project timelines, an improved accuracy and enhanced process efficiency in their construction projects. Automating with Weagree provides a solid foundation for contract management, minimising risks and fostering successful project delivery.
How else does Weagree support large construction projects?
At later stage, Weagree has developed semi-automated tasks management. On all individual contracts (or individual project documents) and the project-level Kanban boards, a user can monitor:
- all their own tasks and to-do’s
- the pending tasks of their direct colleagues
- the tasks in connection with a particular construction project, as well as in connection with individual agreements or documents of such project
- the tasks of one or more of their direct colleagues
In connection with every contract deadline and task, one or more e-mail notifications can be configured. This can be preconfigured by the admin (for the careless project managers) and tailored by the careful project leaders. Pending or overdue tasks are alerted by e-mail notification (and notification can be sent to colleagues, incl. supervising managers). Tasks can be recurring.
The task overviews are essentially also a ‘to do’ list for the project manager as well as a status report for the end-responsible management board. Hence, such to-do list (or pending tasks overview) can be exported in Excel-format.
Although not in scope, Weagree also facilitates advanced approval workflows: sequential, parallel or Q&A-triggered approval requirements, with the possibility for all stakeholders involved in the contract or transaction to discuss any ‘soft conditions’ for approval or to explain why a submitted request for approval was rejected. The discussions are stored alongside the (approved or rejected) contract or document.
Using the Weagree questionnaires for creating the construction project documentation sets as ‘AI prompts’ for reviewing, risk-assessing and data-extracting project documentation that was prepared or updated outside of Weagree, further accelerates the management of a construction project.
