North America Construction (1993) Ltd. / NAC Constructors Ltd. (NAC) is a multi-discipline, self-performing general contractor in Moriston, Ontario that works on large heavy industrial construction projects.
Recently, they overcame a large challenge — manual contract review.
For many years, NAC managed the processing of over 40 RFTs annually through a hands-on-review process. Although this approach ensured a thorough examination of each contract it was extremely time consuming. As contract language became more complicated and review timelines grew tighter they realized a change in process was needed.
Each contract could contain dozens or hundreds of risk items, and NAC’s estimating team didn’t have the time to find and push back on every unfavorable term.
Reconciling differences between a contract’s General and Supplementary Conditions were tedious and hard to do while balancing the day to day obligations of an estimating department.
They had to review and respond to 1,000+ page contracts under tight deadlines, and they often had to process multiple contracts every week.
They could not quickly or consistently screen projects, and invested too much time and effort reviewing RFTs that ultimately weren’t worth bidding on.
“We knew we needed to change our process,” Don White, Chief Estimator at NAC explained. “We were spending a week or more reviewing every RFTs we received, and some weeks we had to review two or three RFTs at a time.”
NAC felt they could save time and negotiate better terms if they found a more efficient way to review contracts and manage the risks they carried. That’s when they found Provision.
NAC wanted to find a contract risk management solution that would:
They responded to a message from Provision, and learned more about the solution.
NAC requested a consultation and demo, and decided to try Provision out.
“Perhaps the biggest benefit we saw Provision could offer was time saved performing front end reviews of tender documents,” Don said. “We saw if it did what it said it did, it would literally save us days of review time.”
NAC quickly integrated Provision into their project review process.
Provision was a plug-and-play piece of software, and their support team helped NAC get the most out of the solution. Provision’s team onboarded NAC with three in-person sessions and configured their risk review to look for the specific risks NAC cared most about.
NAC also created custom risk lists on Provision to reduce the risk of previous disputes and claims recurring.
Using Provision, NAC immediately automated a large amount of their contract review tasks. By doing so, they solved all of the core problems they were suffering from. With Provision, NAC:
“Provision has made contract review more manageable,” said Don. “It’s easier for our estimation team to work through contracts without it taking too much time.”
Provision also made managing contract risks more collaborative. It gave NAC a central home for both pre-construction and construction teams. If Provision finds a risk in an RFT, it’s easy to flag it for legal review. If a client raises a dispute during construction, operations can quickly look up the relevant terms and push back when needed.
Overall, Provision is helping NAC work through more RFTs, faster and easier.
“Something that would have taken a week to page turn and go through, now it’s being done literally in a couple of days,” said Don. “We can now evaluate unlimited jobs. We can just dump them into the system, run it through our criteria, and by morning know if it’s something we want to pursue.”
As Don at NAC summarizes:
“Provision is a software tool that compliments our tender risk review process.
This program offers a thorough analysis of tender documents, identifying potential contract language concerns. Its robust analysis of tender documents and the ability to upload relevant documentation, such as addenda and specification sections, during the entire bid process, ensure a focused approach to risk management.
We plan to adopt Provision as our comprehensive cradle-to-grave solution for all future projects.”