Gull Industries in Seattle adopts PlanWell Collaborate

Gull Industries in Seattle started in 1959 and blossomed into
a network of more than 170 gas stations, convenience stores,
service stations, and commercial card lock facilities all over the
Pacific Northwest. In the early 1990s, seeing the domination of
that market by large global oil companies, Gull strategically started
to convert and redevelop their real estate properties into more
lucrative uses, including commercial, retail, mixed use and office
parks projects

The Gull Industries team today faces many of the same problems
any real estate management team or developer faces. Building,
maintaining and administering properties means site and building
information needs to travel fast. Building construction documents
need to get to the right teams when they need them. Delays mean
time and money. Gull’s contractors, consultants and employees
needed to more conveniently access property drawings. And they
usually couldn’t wait for an overnight document shipment.
That’s where ARC’s PlanWell Collaborate came in.
Gull Industries, seeing the need to efficiently get information to their
on-site project teams, thought digitizing all of their project drawings
and environmental reports and loading them on their network
servers would be adequate for their needs.
But during their research, they found that ARC’s PlanWell Collaborate
answered their more strategic, long-term needs.

PlanWell Collaborate is a cloud collaboration tool designed
specifically for the needs of project managers in architectural and
engineering firms. It’s simple to use, powerful, and does not require
weeks of training for users to become expert at sharing project
information, managing document collaboration, and updating
project teams.
The Gull Industries team immediately saw the benefits of
PlanWell Collaborate.
By placing their documents securely in the cloud, they’d lessen the
data load on their network servers. Adding a large plans archive
on their network would have required additional IT administration
and a more elaborate backup strategy, not to mention it could slow
network speed.
Also, by allowing secure, fast access to project documents via the
web, contractors and consultants on property maintenance or site
construction projects would never be delayed waiting for the right
information or data. 24/7, Gull Industries project teams can now
access any required document via a web browser. Gull project
teams can download, view and redline documents in minutes rather
than days.
Project teams typically change quickly, and Gull Industries
management saw that PlanWell Collaborate’s powerful address
book functionality would allow them to manage their entire list of
contractors and consultants more easily. Managers are now able
to create project teams for each of their properties based on
geographic location, project requirements, and specialized needs
in hours instead of days.
An added benefit of using PlanWell Collaborate is that Gull
Industries prints less. By only printing what’s needed and using
digital documents when appropriate, Gull Industries gets greener
and saves money.
In addition to helping Gull with knowledge sharing and document
collaboration, ARC’s local team in Seattle was also able to provide
Gull an on-site large-format printer when quick printing was
required.
If you’re facing bottlenecks when it comes to getting the right
information out as quickly as possible, check out the PlanWell
Collaborate website at www.planwellcollaborate.com and download
a free trial.
See how PlanWell Collaborate can make your project teams more
efficient.