Skanska USA Reboots For a Southeast Rebound
The approach saves time and money and increases worker safety. "Our customers can measure the value," Reyhan says. "It begins to define our commitment to innovation."
The company also expanded its presence in southeast Florida, South Carolina and Virginia. The reasoning was simple, says MacLeod: "Most of our large competitors were moving out of those regions."
Counterintuitive Thinking
Counterintuitive thinking is standard operating procedure for MacLeod. The firm has diversified rather than consolidated its workforce in the recession. "We had to start developing our own talent pool, which meant hiring people with diverse backgrounds," MacLeod says.
Skanska USA executives say the number of Southeast employees has remained "consistent" in recent years.
Instead of only adding workers with construction backgrounds, the contractor hired more engineers and people educated in business and the humanities.
"Sometimes in our industry, there's a lot of inertia to change," MacLeod says. "But then you inject this person with a diverse background, and he's the one who starts saying, 'Why do we do it that way?'"
For instance, a superintendent in North Carolina, with a carpentry background and a degree in Spanish, was previously a teacher. He was the one who pushed Skanska USA to roll out iPads in the field.
The company says it invested about $250,000 on technology last year. Part of that was for its $95.2-million James B. Hunt Jr. Library project at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
There, Skanska USA rolled out an information kiosk on wheels, which contains a computer and a large monitor. The kiosk allows any contractor on the job to review plans electronically.
Paul Manning, director of Duke University's office of project management in Durham, N.C.—and a former Skanska executive for New York—was impressed with the kiosk when he toured the library site. At one point, Manning says, he asked an assistant superintendent to tell him about an air handler.
The super responded by scanning the air handler and using a mobile computing device to immediately pull up a trove of information, including performance specifications and dates related to installation and commissioning.
