BW: Workplace Experts is a commercial fit out contractor in London and the South East specialising in high quality fit outs
The company’s aim is to complete every project “defect-free at practical completion”, which is why they have put a strong focus on quality and customer service. Their team has also been at the forefront of leveraging new technologies to make collaboration on projects simpler and more reliable.
When their digital team first encountered OpenSpace in their search for new technologies, they immediately saw the potential benefits this 360° reality capture solution could bring to their clients and made the decision to run a pilot on two active projects.
360° reality capture solution
When the pilot started, project managers on-site were equipped with a 360° camera and an OpenSpace login. After a quick onboarding session, they started to capture the site on a weekly basis.
According to Tom Parish, technology engineer at BW: Workplace Experts, the feedback from the teams on-site was positive from the start: “The app is very intuitive. Everything does exactly what you expect it to do.”
This sentiment is echoed by Julian Eley, senior project manager, who has been with the company for over 10 years. He has been taking captures on his projects with OpenSpace for more than a year now.
“It’s very simple. If I’m reviewing something on the go, I predominantly use it on my phone,” Julian says.
Weekly captures were shared with clients to showcase progress. According to Tom, providing remote access to a near-live version of the project site with OpenSpace captures has been a big hit with international and local clients.
“Rather than having to bring every subcontractor on-site
before we take ownership, they can access the OpenSpace walkthrough to review and investigate on their own terms. This saves time and makes the process more efficient.”
“Using OpenSpace helps us build a better relationship with clients,” Tom says. “Also, the way that we can now see a site remotely allows for conversations to happen earlier in case there are any problems.”
Since those first pilot projects, BW: Workplace Experts has rolled out OpenSpace company-wide across all sites. The team continues to use OpenSpace to add value to existing clients, and to actively win new ones.
“We use OpenSpace also for our tender pitches for new projects,” Julian says.
In addition, BW: Workplace Experts plans to leverage the new Timelapse Video feature for the perfect project wrap-up with clients; Tom adds: “Clients will be interested to see how their office has transformed from a blank shell to a beautiful new workspace.”
OpenSpace has not only improved communication with customers, it also simplifies coordination with subcontractors, from initial project reviews to resolving disputes. More recently BW: Workplace Experts has started to share the initial captures that were taken with OpenSpace during the tender process with subcontractors.
“Rather than having to bring every subcontractor on-site before we take ownership, they can access the OpenSpace walkthrough to review and investigate on their own terms. This saves time and makes the process more efficient,” says Tom.
Julian agrees that the ability to share captures with subcontractors is one of the biggest benefits of OpenSpace, particularly for him as project manager. On top of that, the captures also serve as proof of work that can be incredibly useful to avoid disputes, hold teams accountable and ultimately improve coordination with subcontractors.
With OpenSpace automatically adding date and time stamps to each capture as well as pinning images to the floor plan, it’s a simple and objective proof of work done, even three months or more down the line. Or as Julian says:
“This is almost like an insurance policy in some instances.”
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