Steve Lehmann, an ironworker working as a project manager at Bennett Steel Inc., Sapulpa, Okla., used to waste hours handling paperwork.

“Sometimes I’d drive an hour and 45 minutes from the office to the jobsite, then go back and forth with new blueprints,” Lehmann said.  “That’s just a lot of time.”

Lehmann hasn’t complained for over a year—at least not about driving.

Now, instead of trucking back to Bennett’s offices whenever an updated form or document is needed on a jobsite, Lehmann simply flips back the cover of his iPad. 

To access an updated set of blueprints or request a revised set of drawings, Lehmann need only select the GoFlex app on his tablet to access Bennett Steel’s wireless hard drive, which, at 8 terabytes, can store an astounding amount of data—more than four times the information available in the University of California at Berkley research library.

For Bennett's general foremen and field superintendents, signing a new safety document or updating a W4 for an ironworker is a cinch, too.  Bennett Steel stores personnel files in a “cloud” using the free Dropbox app.  Once downloaded, any forms or documents can be signed on the jobsite using Type on PDF, then emailed directly to the main office where another representative from management can review and file the completed forms.

If all this seems like a big change over how paper was once handled in the construction industry, that’s because it is.

“The biggest problem I used to see was the amount of paper we were using in printing drawings and revisions,” said Dave Bennett, President of Bennett Steel.

Years before, Bennett had tried his hand at conserving both paper and time.  In 2005, he brought the detailing and drafting department in-house to reduce the lag between requests to update drawings and actually receiving the new material.  Even so, the printing process remained a game of financial roulette.  Bennett still had to pay more than $1 per sheet printed using a plotter—a printer for blueprints—and the company was required to adhere to a service plan which defined how many blueprints they could produce in any given month.

At one point, Bennett considered just buying a plotter to avoid binding plotter service plans and expensive surcharges for printing more documents than the monthly contract allowed.

“At that point, we had a vision.  To stop printing so many blueprints and shipping them out to the field,” Bennett said. 

In just a matter of months, all project managers, site superintendents, ironworker superintendents and foremen had iPads and smartphones.

“I had had an iPad for about six months, and I was of the opinion that it just wasn’t going to work,” Lehmann admitted.  “But just at first.”

Any uncertainty about Bennett’s paperless project evaporated once Harvey C. Swift, a field operations manager at Bennett, began to oversee the program.

As the Assistant Director of Education and Training at the Ironworker Management Progressive Action Cooperative Trust (IMPACT) until early 2012, Swift had become known throughout the construction industry as an expert on mobile technologies and applications.  Following his transition to Bennett Steel, Swift quickly spurred the project to life and fast-tracked employee training.

“None of our guys had ever used GoFlex or Dropbox before,” Swift said.  “But the interfaces are easy to learn, and none of our field supervision has had any problem acclimating to the system.”

Lehmann agreed.  “I was the safety director for about four years, and I was fairly computer illiterate.  I had to learn how to use our systems, which wasn’t easy.  By the time we switched over to Apple, there had been quite a bit of improvement in usability.”

The paperless project has helped Bennett Steel save time, increase productivity and ensure job-site safety.

“Say we find a misfitting beam, now we can actually pull up the 3D model right there on an iPad to see what the problem is,” Bennett explained.

“We can also sign up an Ironworker right in the field using only the iPad.  We can put together his personnel profile, fill out his W4, his I9.  He can read every policy and sign it right there, and the forms go directly to payroll, safety—wherever the forms are supposed to go,” Bennett added.  “It’s instant gratification.”

According to Bennett, the average distance between Bennett’s offices in Sapulpa and their jobsites is between 100 and 150 miles.  Eliminating transport time for forms, documents and people, Bennett estimates that his company saves about 500 man hours on a 10,000 man hour job—or about five percent—thanks to mobile technologies. And considering the small margins many contracting firms operate under, an initial five percent savings on a project can go a long way.

Even the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) has recognized Bennett Steel’s innovative mobile strategy.  As an advanced AISC certified erector and fabricator, Bennett Steel must keep copies of all current and voided drawings in the field. 

“We worked with AISC to ensure that they knew about our paperless project and that they would continue to recognize our advanced AISC certification with this new system.”  Bennett added, “AISC is as excited about the new technologies as we are.”

“But we have to pay particular attention to maintaining a secure process for managing those documents,” Swift said.  Many of the transmitted files contain sensitive information, such as social security numbers, pictures and signatures.  “Mr. Bennett ensured we have a process in place requiring our field supervision to delete all of these personnel records from their tablets once the HR or Safety department confirms that they received the document.”

Contractors all around the United States have to find new and creative ways to lower job costs while guaranteeing that their employees still make a living.  “To do this, I’m seeing more and more general contractors going paperless.  It’s definitely a big time saver,” Bennett said.

Steve Lehmann is just glad he doesn’t have to spend hours on the road each day carrying forms back and forth from Bennett’s main office.  “Paperless construction is the coming thing,” Lehmann said.  “There are a lot more computer literate people than there used to be.  Paperless is what the younger generation is used to.”