SmithGroup focuses on innovative design - supported by TonicDM

SmithGroup is one of the world’s leading integrated design firms, with a heritage that spans over a century and a half of creating iconic spaces that define the built environment and enrich communities. Today, SmithGroup is an award-winning architecture and engineering company that employs research, data, advanced technologies, and design thinking to help clients solve their most complex challenges.

Laura Babinski, a Technology Strategist at SmithGroup, champions technology and change for SmithGroup’s 1,400 employees in 20 locations. With a background as an architect, Laura understands firsthand the challenges of designing and the need to stay organized, agile and secure.

Laura describes her job as being driven by change management, “Getting 1,400 people from one place to another takes a lot so we are careful with the technology changes we make to ensure that it’s worth it.”

So when the time came for SmithGroup to review their project management software, knowing that TonicDM was developed by a team of architects and engineers helped with the decision. “Most construction management platforms are contractor-centric,” Babinski says. “A contractor-centric platform does not provide any venue for us to handle our design-side coordination.”

Using Workflows to Find Design Decisions

‍For that coordination, SmithGroup uses TonicDM to help keep track of their Construction Administration (CA) workflows. For projects that span years, knowing where to find design decisions is critical, says Babinski. From a CA perspective being able to know, “where things are in the system: When did we get this? When is it due back? Who has it? How long do we have to return it and what’s the answer? These things make day-to-day design management that much easier for our hybrid workforce.”

Opening Up New Ways to Use Data

‍Working with TonicDM for the past four years has helped SmithGroup achieve their internal goals. “Because we are tracking RFIs in the CA module, it’s helping us define the ways we can be more efficient so that our team can focus on design,” says Babinski.

“What’s interesting to me are the ways that we can get better analytics on our RFIs because we have the project volume. We have been working on ways to flag avoidable issues so that they are protective against future added costs. It’s great to feel that we can bring this to TonicDM and partner with them on a solution. We are building this together,” says Babinski..

RLPS benefits from saving time, money and duplicated effort with TonicDM.

Based in Lancaster PA, RLPS Architects provide master planning, architecture, and interior design services for clients throughout the United States. The firm specialize in planning and design of CCRCs/Life Plan Communities, senior care and inpatient hospice centers, public and private schools, universities and local commercial buildings including offices, libraries and hospitality venues.

After a chance meeting on a return flight, RLPS Architects Director of Technology, Brian Crosby, was put in touch with TonicDM. RLPS had been actively looking to replace their existing Project Information Management system with a cloud-based solution. They needed the solution to cover four main workflows, email filing, file transfer and the RFI and Submittal process. 

The firm's previous PIM solution was not, in Crosby's opinion, “efficient” for the firm's needs, especially for remote staff who were experiencing delays and connection issues via VPN or virtual desktop. “The fact that TonicDM is cloud based is a huge benefit - instant access for our users and no processing is being done on our local machines”. 

One year after transitioning to TonicDM, RLPS Architects remain happy with the solution. “The switch was easy, from an end user and IT standpoint and as a firm we are saving time and our end users are much happier with TonicDM as our project information management system.”

TonicDM’s automated email filing functions - “conversation filing” and “file for one, file for all”, increased in the number of emails being filed and decreased the amount of time spent filing by RLPS staff. Crosby mentions “Instead of 20 people filing 20 copies of the same email, it’s one person filing and TonicDM grabbing the rest and marking the emails as filed directly in Outlook for the other 19, we’re saving a lot of time.”

Crosby says “The switch was very easy for us, TonicDM covered the four main components, the staff onboarding and training was great and the IT set up, which I thought I was going to have to put in a bunch of hours on, took me an hour and TonicDM handled the rest. We transferred over 3 million emails into TonicDM via their NFTT system.”

CA workflow improvement with the TonicDM API connection to Procore the process for RFI and Submittal logging at RLPS was cut in half saving time and improving end user experience.