5 hours per week saved on defect management
How project developer GARBE has made snagging more efficient with PlanRadar
Garbe Immobilien- Projekte GmbH is a developer that specialises in residential, industrial and office real estate developments. Around 60 employees strive to create innovative and sustainable concepts for working and living, and they and the company follow the traditional principles of regional Hanseatic partnership when collaborating with project partners. Garbe is involved in all phases of construction projects, from acquiring land and building design to planning, realisation and sales. The company keeps a close eye on work quality during construction. GARBE uses PlanRadar to ensure that defect management runs smoothly and to deal with any warranty issues promptly.
The challenge: complicated defect management
Paul Herzog is a Site Manager at GARBE. His main duties include managing the cost-effective construction of high-quality homes and workspaces. He is also tasked with overseeing cooperative collaboration with all people and companies involved on site. . Defect management is an essential part of keeping the number of defects as low as possible and the effort required for any follow-up to a minimum. “In the past, we were faced with the challenge of snagging being done using clipboards, notebooks and Excel tables: it was all very time-consuming. Defects were recorded differently by various trades and workers as there were no unified standards. What’s more, gaps in the system meant that the documentation of how defects were remedied was not always easy to follow,” said the site manager. The unintentional result was that workers needed to spend a great deal of time on completing records in the office.
The Solution: PlanRadar makes defect management more efficient
GARBE has been using PlanRadar since 2017. After reviewing the various competitors in the market, a trial run of PlanRadar was launched for a Berlin-based project. When this was completed successfully, PlanRadar was rolled out throughout the whole company. What was the decisive factor for this choice? “The interface is intuitive and easy to use. Additionally, PlanRadar has an incredible range of functions. From the simple creation of tickets to record defects, to informative analyses and PDF reports produced in seconds, PlanRadar offers us a comprehensive solution for all defect management documentation,” Paul Herzog explained. It is not only GARBE employees that PlanRadar supports with communication and documentation on site, because external contractors use the software too.
The result: Uniform platform ensures fast processes and maximum transparency
GARBE uses PlanRadar for a range of projects. One of these was the award-winning Bloom housing project in the Pergolenviertel area in Hamburg.. GARBE oversaw the building of 72 homes on this site from 2018 to 2020, with the costs coming to around 30 million euros. Up to six people were involved in the construction project on the developer’s side, including site managers and project assistants.“In addition, the contractors from different trades had another 30 employees who worked on remedying the defects found,”, noted Paul Herzog. He summarised how PlanRadar was used in the Pergolenviertel area in Hamburg and other projects: „The software means that all the participants have a single platform available to them. The enables process chains to be automated and we also benefit from maximum traceability thanks to complete documentation of all steps. Automating the follow-up defect management processes means I have reduced the working hours I spend on this by around five hours a week.”. This enables site managers to apply their expertise to other aspects of projects. But this was not the only benefit. Paul Herzog and his team also noticed that shortening process chains with PlanRadar led to improved quality. In particular, the rapid recording of defects and high degree of transparency boosts performance for clients and contractors.
