Wall-tech, a US-based Cold-Formed Steel framing solutions provider, faced significant challenges in managing RFIs across their construction projects. The company struggled with delayed stakeholder responses and inefficient information tracking through emails and local spreadsheets, which threatened project timelines and budgets. By implementing a centralized RFI management system, Wall-tech achieved a 75% increase in stakeholder responsiveness and reduced project-related emails by 50%. The new solution enabled automated reminders, clear accountability for responses, and improved visibility for senior management. This transformation significantly enhanced project efficiency while maintaining Wall-tech's commitment to delivering faster, cost-efficient, and high-quality construction solutions.
Wall-tech is a US-based firm that engineer, prefabricate, and install Cold-Formed Steel (CFS) framing solutions to give contractors and developers a faster, more cost-efficient, and world-class quality construction.
In the construction industry, profit margins are typically low so it’s imperative to complete projects as efficiently as possible, by reducing any unnecessary time spent by administrative or project management personnel.
We worked with Wall-tech to achieve one of the company’s stated benefits, that being “Easier Project Management”.
Project participants such as the contractor, developer, and various other professional services firms were not responding to Wall-tech’s requests for information. This meant that Wall-tech did not have the information to complete the project on time and on budget.
Information was trickled through to Wall-tech via email and then added to a local spreadsheet to keep track of all information provided. There are back-and-forth emails requesting information missing from the original response.
Get Wall-tech timely information from stakeholders to complete the project on time and on budget.
The current approach is for the project manager to track the status of requests for information using a local copy of a spreadsheet. If responses weren’t received, the project manager would follow up with them requesting the information via email. They record this follow up in their spreadsheet waiting for a response.
Some stakeholders respond to requests in SharePoint but it is not stated who has provided the response making it difficult for Wall-tech to feel confident relying on the information. Any future audits would make it difficult to confirm who provided that information.
Wall-tech downloaded a list of live questions that were outstanding on a project. These were uploaded to a project created as Requests for Information (or RFIs). The project manager added Wall-tech employees that were working on the project, and RFIs were assigned to the responsible person. Initially the tool was used internally.
Senior management could see the overall status of RFIs, and how many were outstanding.
After setting up the project, the contractor and engineering firm was added to the project. Relevant RFIs were assigned to them that were outstanding. They could easily filter by the outstanding RFIs that were assigned to them.
The implementation of the centralized RFI management system delivered significant measurable improvements to Wall-tech's project management processes:
The data room didn’t support uploading of email and images. This is a feature that is on Due’s product roadmap. It is critical that these file types can be uploaded and attached to RFIs so that all information can be shared in one platform without sharing via email.
Wall-tech was invited by the contractor to use another project management software, Procore. There was some initial communication on Procore but RFIs were not getting answered, so everyone switched to emails. Emails are quicker and you need to be logged in to see the responses. This results in people reverting to Email. There is no chat section on Procure so there is no way to ask questions that aren’t official RFIs which resulted in email use. This is a clear differentiator of Due.
The Wall-tech case study demonstrates how modernizing RFI management can significantly impact construction project efficiency. By transitioning from a manual, email-based system to a centralized digital platform, Wall-tech achieved remarkable improvements in stakeholder communication and project oversight. The 75% increase in response rates and 50% reduction in email volume represent tangible benefits that directly contribute to Wall-tech's goal of delivering faster, more cost-efficient construction solutions. This transformation not only streamlined internal processes but also enhanced collaboration with external stakeholders, proving that the right digital tools can overcome traditional construction industry communication challenges. The success of this implementation underscores the importance of structured information management in maintaining project timelines and budgets in the construction sector.
Take the first step toward better RFI management and improved project efficiency:
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