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September 8, 2005

Construction Industry Spotlight: Getting a handle on far-flung construction

  • Eastside firm develops Web-based software application to help big box retailers and others keep track of multiple construction projects at different locations.
    • By MARC STILES
    Journal Staff Reporter

    EVEN FOR A FAST-GROWING, global company like Costco Wholesale, the 2005 expansion plan seems daunting: open up to 25 warehouse stores and relocate seven others.


    ‘It’s been really phenomenal how we can keep track of projects. ... We can keep track of what goes on on a job weekly if not daily.’

    -- Ali Moayeri,
    Costco Wholesale

    To get one 150,000-square-foot warehouse up and running within four months after ground-breaking is one thing. To oversee the construction of some two dozen such facilities plus the relocations of a handful more at locations around the world, is quite another.

    To keep track of the far-flung projects, Issaquah-based Costco — which bills itself as the nation's fifth largest retailer — uses a Web-based software application that another Eastside company developed. It's called site/folio, and it has spawned a new company with the same name. Site/folio is a division of Bellevue-based MulvannyG2 Architecture.

    Keeping track of it all

    About seven years ago, Costco needed a way to know what hundreds of architects, engineers and consultants were doing on any given project at any given time. Managers could travel the world to check — hardly efficient when time is of the essence. So the company turned to MulvannyG2, which has been working on Costco construction projects since the retailer began. MulvannyG2 staff members analyzed the Costco culture and business model and came up with what became site/folio.

    "It's been really phenomenal how we can keep track of projects," says Ali Moayeri, Costco's senior vice president of construction. "Between the real estate department and the construction department we can keep track of what goes on on a job weekly if not daily."

    Among other things, Costco managers can log onto the Internet to control contracts and invoices. They can determine when a change proposal becomes a change order. And they can look at photos that contractors are required to post. Managers still travel to check progress, just not as much.

    "It's a lot easier now. You can do it in a much, much shorter time," Moayeri says.

    In six years, site/folio has been used to follow the work at more than 350 new Costco buildings and thousands of remodeled warehouse projects, distribution centers, stores and gas stations.

    This caught the attention of judges for Constructech Magazine's Vision Awards. Last year, they gave Costco a Gold Award for its use of site/folio.

    Another MulvannyG2 client, Fred Meyer, used the system and the result was more kudos from the magazine.

    Like Costco, steady growth is a cornerstone of the company's business plan. The lack of a centralized place to keep track of that growth, however, hamstrung Fred Meyer.

    According to site/folio, Fred Meyer was employing the services of MulvannyG2 and other architecture companies. Fred Meyer's construction department estimated it was spending half its time sending duplicate faxes to multiple parties, and browsing through binders containing hundreds of documents that all cross-referenced each other with no guarantee the documents were up-to-date or accurate. With site/folio, Fred Meyer representatives have real-time access to standardized status reports.

    A business is born

    MulvannyG2 officials realized they were onto something so about four years ago they decided to turn the product into an application.

    MulvannyG2 Chairman Jerry Lee, the firm's former CEO, pushed for the creation of site/folio as a company. "He was really the one who gave us the green light to go with it," says Justin Hill, site/folio general manager. "We invested a significant amount of money in it."

    Celeste Lenon led a team of about 10 code writers and others. Hill says Lenon "was the person who took it and made it real." Two years ago, the product was branded site/folio.

    "Now we are looking to grow the distribution of the product," Hill says.

    The nascent company took the tool to trade shows. "Everywhere we went everyone said, ‘Wow, I would love to have this,'" says Jason Nejezchleb, site/folio product director.

    It's not only retailers who are interested. Site/folio is also being marketed to the hospitality industry. And contractors, designers and other consultants who work with those industries are interested, too, according to Nejezchleb.

    "We are in talks with half a dozen civil engineering companies, (and) we are in a beta test with a contractor out of Northern California," Hill says.

    The rollout has been deliberately slow, according to Hill, who explains the company wants to make sure there's adequate support first. Site/folio is what's known as an "application service provider." That means site/folio is responsible for hosting, operating, customizing and maintaining the application. The focus, Hill says, is "on extremely detailed support of existing clients."

    Site/folio's seven-member staff includes developers in Bellevue and customer-support employees in Irvine, Calif. Nejezchleb manages the team from Florida. "Talk about telecommuting," Hill says.

    There is no full-time sales staff yet. Most customers are MulvannyG2 clients, but site/folio does have customers who do not use the company for architectural or design work.

    Site/folio's preference is to price the program on a subscription based on the number of users. But developers and others have a hard time allocating the cost that way. So site/folio may offer the service on a per project basis with the price dependent on the number of users and features.

    "It's very flexible," says Hill, who says that for a minimum number of users and features the cost will start at about $1,500 a month.



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