From Excel Planning to Real-time Project Management

The challenge

Project schedules were managed in Excel files shared by email. Purchase approvals took up to 3 days. New employees needed 2 months to learn all internal processes.

Our approach

Digital project management system in Monday.com with automated purchase triggers, digital approval workflows and a central document library. Direct integration with accounting software for real-time cost tracking per project site.

1. Phase 1

   Walk the site first

   We started on two building sites rather than behind a desk. It turned out site managers were not struggling with Excel as such, but with the fact that they never open a laptop on site: everything had to work on a phone.

2. Phase 2

   Set up site management in Monday.com

   Each site became a board with fixed phases, owners and deadlines. We deliberately chose an existing platform over custom software: faster to go live and easier to hand over.

3. Phase 3

   Digitise approvals

   Orders above a set amount go through a digital approval flow with a phone notification. That alone cut turnaround from three days to a few hours, simply because nobody waits for a signature at the office anymore.

4. Phase 4

   Connect cost monitoring

   The link with accounting shows actual cost against budget per site. Overruns become visible during the project instead of at final settlement.

The results

• Purchase approval time from 3 days to 4 hours
• 60% fewer planning errors on site
• Onboarding period for new staff from 8 to 3 weeks
• Projects delivered on average 12 days earlier

Frequently asked questions

Do site managers really use this, or does it stay at the office?

That was the critical factor. Because everything works on mobile and data entry is short, the system got used on site. Had the app been slow or cumbersome, the spreadsheets would simply have returned.

Why Monday.com and not construction-specific software?

Construction software is powerful but heavy to roll out. For a 40-person company, speed of adoption and ease of use outweighed feature completeness.

What about documents and drawings?

They live in a central library linked to the site, with version control. That ended the debate about who is working from which version of the plan.

What was the biggest gain?

Not the time saved, but the fact that new employees are productive after three weeks instead of eight: every process is visible in one system.