The company, founded in 1964 by Ian and Hardie Brown began life as a plant hirer then evolved into sub-contracting and, from the mid-1970s, into a Civil Engineering main contractor. From initially making a reputation as an expert earthworks contractor, their civil engineering division is today, very diverse. Although they still retain that earthworks expertise, they now have added other strengths in the provision of development and energy infrastructure.
I & H Brown first approached BuilderStorm in 2016 after being awarded an £18m multi-storey car park project as part of the Time Square redevelopment in Warrington. The structure was one of the first awarded by Warrington Borough Council with a BIM requirement. BIM was a new concept, but I & H Brown were keen to embrace new technology and provide a platform that would see the project run smoothly. They wanted a BIM compliant drawing and document management system, a secure cloud-based solution for photo storage, and an easy to use RFI system for not only their in-house teams but also sub-contractors, designers and the client.
BuilderStorm already offered a great set of features that ticked all the boxes for I & H Brown. We did a full presentation at their offices in front of the whole team, and each element was well received. After a few short training sessions on the project site in Warrington, we had the team up and running in very little time. The transition was pain-free, and the whole project was very quick to adopt the new way of working. The project created over 1000 drawings; each with multiple revisions, which BuilderStorm kept track of seamlessly, nearly 200 RFI’s all stored securely and tracked with live timestamps, and almost 800 photos showing the project progress on a daily basis. Because the platform is mobile-friendly, everyone on the team could integrate with the project without the need to be sat behind a desk, drawings can be viewed in the field, or RFI’s created with photos attached in one action. BuilderStorm ensured that all the information was available to anyone, whenever it was needed. All of this meant the project was well coordinated, finishing on time and budget.
I & H Brown looked at many other software suppliers, which were either cost-prohibitive, based outside the UK, or didn’t offer the required feature set needed to manage the project. From our initial contact, we had I & H Brown signed up and using the software within a month. We have a reputation for providing excellent customer support, which is helped by the simple and user-friendly interface we offer. Once I & H Brown started using the software, they identified an area where it could be improved. We were able to look at their request to restrict individual project folders to specific sets of users and we began to spec out the new feature and included our contact at I & H Brown during the process, getting the requirements correct the first time. Once the feature was complete, we invited I & H Brown to test the functionality and provide feedback on any changes. This feature has since been rolled out to all our clients who have benefitted from this improvement. BuilderStorm continues to develop new features and technology which all of our clients can use. We are pleased I & H Brown continue to use our product to improve the way they manage their projects.
“The Warrington MSCP was our first project under the BIM directive, so we needed a solution that is easy to use but still covers all the requirements. We looked at other products but BuilderStorm stood out by far. The team at BuilderStorm have gone to great lengths to make sure we are getting the most out of the software, to the point that they added specific features for us. The platform was approved by the client and the benefits are already being realised. I would recommend BuilderStorm to any company looking to improve information flow or achieve BIM compliance”
