Customer Showcase

Project Summary

Specialty contractor F.A. Rohrbach, Inc., based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, focuses on heavy commercial, industrial, and site-work projects. Although the company’s leadership was well aware of the increasing risks associated with haphazard document management, it was having difficulty finding a practical and simple solution to the problem. Because F.A. Rohrbach often promotes project managers from the field, the right system would have to be easy to use and master, and require little to no technical expertise. The company turned to Autodesk® Subcontractor. Since adopting Subcontractor, F.A. Rohrbach has experienced many significant benefits, including the following:

• Reduced project-risk exposure 
• Faster and easier claims resolution 
• Increased project management productivity 
• Improved visibility into project performance

The Challenge
Lacking a formal document management process and a system to support one, F.A. Rohrbach found itself taking on more project risk than its management felt was acceptable. Project documentation was haphazard, and generating documentation involved photocopying a master form or creating documents using a word-processing program.

“I realized that the risks of having poor documentation were too high,” says Stephen Rohrbach, CPC, the company’s president, who also serves as the current national president of the American Subcontractors Association (ASA). “But we just didn’t have the resources or the capacity to document projects efficiently, and that was keeping us from doing much about the problem.”

The Solution
Rohrbach was exposed to Autodesk Subcontractor during an ASA event, where he saw a demonstration of the tool and was immediately impressed with its capabilities and ease of use.

“The flow and consistency of the documentation in Autodesk Subcontractor was exactly what we had been looking for,” says Rohrbach. “Plus, at the time, we had just promoted two new field employees to project managers. These guys knew how to manage projects very well, but they weren’t used to using computers every day. We needed a tool that would allow employees to generate documents easily and consistently, with little work in the way of typing text or going through multiple confusing steps.”

After looking into two other competing options, Rohrbach purchased Autodesk’s solution. The company currently uses many of the system’s modules, including RFIs (requests for information), submittals, transmittals, change order requests, purchase orders, daily reports, and correspondence.

The Result

According to Rohrbach, Autodesk Subcontractor has been an invaluable tool in the current environment of increased business risk and tighter profit margins. Recently, the company found itself in a claim situation, and its ability to quickly produce a complete set of project documents enabled Rohrbach to collect 100 percent of the claim amount.

“Our attorney was very impressed with the quality and completeness of our documentation,” says Rohrbach. “Signed change orders, agreements, RFIs, notices, daily reports—you name it. With Autodesk Subcontractor, we had it all documented and didn’t have to scramble to find anything. This gave our attorney the ammunition and confidence he needed to move forward with the claim.”

Rohrbach has also noticed a difference in how clients now view his company and the project communications his team generates. “I feel that our information is taken a lot more seriously today, as opposed to the days when we would fax a handwritten cover letter or just pick up the phone to get clarification on a drawing detail,” he says.

From a management and controls standpoint, the system’s cross-project reporting capabilities have enabled Rohrbach to get a better feel for overall project health. And the knowledge that his project management team has an easy way of consistently documenting projects frees him up to work on higher-value activities.

To learn more about how Autodesk Subcontractor can help your business succeed, visit www.autodesk.com/subcontractor or call 800-374-2260.

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F.A. Rohrbach, Inc. Success Story (pdf - 173Kb)