At Jorgenson Builders, we made a commitment several years ago to work towards going paperless for our accounting and our construction documents. I found no reason to continue the cumbersome hauling around of large sets of construction plans as well as the cumbersome task of filing and maintaining paper accounting records.

We started this process a few years ago by using a local company for an online plan room. Using that company, when we sent out requests to bid our projects, those receiving the request would get a link to the plans via email. They could select to have a copy printed or just use a PDF or DWF file and complete their estimates right there on the computer. While this was a great start, this was a costly way of doing this and many of our subcontractors were still electing to print hard copy plans.

In the past couple of years, cloud based options have really come in handy. We now use readily available cloud based applications to send out requests for proposals. We are able to place the plans and other construction documents online ourselves and simply email out a link to the documents. We have not sent requests for bids in the last year any other way. We have watched our printing costs dramatically reduce (savings that can be passed on to a customer) as well as the required office space for storing these documents. Nearly all of our subcontractors and suppliers have jumped on board and many are asking how we do our plan takeoffs completely digitally, saving time and for better organization.

We have also requested that our subcontractors and suppliers email invoices rather than sending hard copies. That way, we can simply save a digital copy in a secure location either on our server or in the cloud. This saves a lot of time organizing and keeps things within easy reach of any internet connection.

I encourage all of our architects to send PDF plans for bidding and only print required permit sets. Recently, several of the municipalities that we work with, have also gone to a nearly paperless system where only a single hard copy set is required (in the past, several were required). Working with architects, municipalities, subcontractors, and suppliers in going paperless, it is possible to go almost completely paperless.

We have also started our contract process with subcontractors as well as with customers through a digital signature system, allowing all documents to be digital and in the cloud. This has saved a lot of paper and a lot of time with contract signatures as well as making it much easier to track down and get those contracts back.

We are now making progress towards using tablets for our field staff for all construction documents. Though we are not all the way there yet, we do have plans in the next year to get additional tablets for our field supervisors. Going paperless is a great way to save time, become more organized, save printing costs, and save A LOT of wasted paper.