For over 13 years Apple Orchard Construction Ltd have been providing a comprehensive building, maintenance and refurbishment service for their clients which include local authorities, public bodies, housing associations, government bodies, educational establishments, major retail outlets and major private property owners.
With their head office based in Armagh and offices in Belfast and Dublin, they are ideally located to carry out construction works right across Ireland & the UK.
The Challenge
With manual, spreadsheet-based methods in place for their entire job costing and project management operations, Projects Director Sean Mooney and his team were becoming increasingly frustrated with the risks and limitations associated with the way they were doing things.
Sean commented “We were a growing construction company, and our existing spreadsheets just weren’t working for us anymore. It was becoming impossible for the old way of doing things to keep up with our rate of growth. We just didn’t have any real visibility of how our projects were progressing or have the cost-control and reporting analysis that we really needed. We often had situations where spreadsheets could be altered, resulting in information moving or even going missing altogether”.
Manual processes including purchase orders, approvals and invoicing were time-consuming routines which were having a direct impact on resource and productivity.
In late 2021, Sean and his team began looking to the marketplace for a solution that could provide them with the automation that would address these issues, and ultimately help enable the business growth they were looking for.
The Solution
Having reviewed many software solutions from various providers side-by-side, the capabilities, support, and cost value that Eque2 Construct Cloud offered made it stand out as the best fit for their business.
Sean commented “The onboarding and implementation team were great. The training was excellent and the simplicity of Eque2 Construct Cloud enabled everyone in the office to get to grips with it very quickly.
Sean added, “Construct Cloud allowed our office and on-site staff to work very closely together and as a result has moved us on quite quickly in a way that we didn’t expect. With routines like purchase orders, approvals, invoicing etc, it has provided a way of working that we just didn’t have before.”
One of their initial key objectives was to provide greater cash-flow and budget reporting and visibility. Their existing reporting process was fraught with duplication, risk of human error and hugely time consuming.
“Eque2 Construct Cloud has had a big impact on how we report on project costs in real-time.” Sean added, “Based on the reporting side of things alone, I’d say that Construct Cloud has provided us with an 80% increase in time-saving efficiency.”
Business Impact
Adopting a cloud-native solution has also provided them with the security and flexibility they needed to move forward as a business, providing a new-found confidence in their ability to grow.
Reflecting on how Construct Cloud is helping Apple Orchard realise their 3–5-year growth plans as a business, Sean commented, “We have several large projects emerging over the next 3-5 years, worth around 25M which we would have previously struggled to manage operationally.
He added “Eque2 Construct Cloud has given us the ability to maintain larger projects with confidence, as we now have the control, visibility, and analysis we now really need.”
