Carpus+Partner: Buildings that Cultivate Knowledge

Digital Support for Complex Construction Projects

Carpus+Partner AG is an international planning and consultancy company with 300 employees at four locations in Germany.

The company was looking to improve their communication and collaboration with clients and contractors. They also wanted to find a way to streamline their processes and improve efficiency.

To solve these problems, Carpus+Partner AG opted to work with PlanRadar. As a result, it has seen a 100% improvement in work effiency thanks to the fact that tasks are tackled in more dynamic and flexible ways and defects are addressed much faster.

The challenge: time-consuming paper documentation and transparent communication in the team and with external partners

Markus Conrads has a background in planning. Working primarily as a project and construction manager at Carpus+Partner, you will usually find him at the heart of the action on the building site.

In his experience, creating high-tech buildings or laboratories can be very complex. Custom material requirements and special safety precautions, for pharma properties in particular, mean constantly changing project management demands. The standard work for each project needs to be completed, while also fulfilling the sometimes demanding conditions placed on buildings for particular sectors. The construction should proceed quickly, comply with all specifications and, of course, meet the company’s own quality standards. So not an easy undertaking ⁠— but that is part of the appeal for Markus Conrads.

Another aspect also makes his project work more challenging. The construction manager mainly communicates with external partners, clients and suppliers in his role. In this context, his main challenge is managing the conflicting demands of logistics, material and communication flows to ensure that processes are as smooth as possible. This was extremely laborious in the past. He used to document defects or anomalies with paper and a pencil, while carrying folders full of plans and a digital camera. Back in the office, Mr Conrads first had to summarise all the information again, assign it correctly and then send it by e-mail to the respective project participants. There was no platform that all workers could access at all times. As a result, recording and communicating data took a lot of work and time.

The solution: using PlanRadar to collect information easily and quickly create reports

Conrads wanted an option to simply and transparently communicate information within the team and with external partners, in order to quickly and efficiently compare the current and target state of a construction project. Other departments at Carpus+Partner were already working with PlanRadar, so he had already heard of the application. But there was another reason that he started independently working with it. In this first project, the client encouraged all the project workers, including Conrads, to use PlanRadar as a single tool for communication about the construction process. He lost no time in getting started and it turned out that PlanRadar was also the perfect tool for Markus Conrads and his own projects.

With PlanRadar, the project manager collects information on the construction site throughout the day using his smartphone, locates anomalies on digital plans, and coordinates the next steps thanks to the simple handling and free integration of subcontractors. Thanks to PlanRadar’s flexible form and report templates, Conrads can generate a report at the end of the day in no time and send it to all the relevant people. All data and information are stored within the software and can be viewed by all workers at all times. PlanRadar is easy to use, which is why Carpus+Partner also recommends the software to its clients as a single documentation and communication tool. The software has proven to be reliable both in the construction phase and when the property is in use.

The result: quick snagging and stress-free work

For site manager Conrads, PlanRadar fulfils exactly the requirements he has for construction documentation software.. Information that was previously only communicated to the respective trades with a time delay during post-processing is now transmitted in real time via the app. As a result, tasks are tackled in more dynamic and flexible ways and defects are addressed much faster. The reporting function also makes Markus Conrads’ day-to-day work much easier: the transparent working methods typically mean that no client issues are left unresolved and that misunderstandings can be nipped in the bud. He works more quickly and efficiently and, most importantly, is less stressed.