PLOT case study says Swinerton cut procurement work by 14 to 16 hours a week

PLOT published a case study on Oct. 6 showing how Swinerton’s three-person team on San Diego State University’s Evolve student housing project replaced an Excel procurement log with PLOT. The company says the change gave the team a shared view of materials, approvals and delivery dates and saved meaningful time each week.

Why it matters: - PLOT is pitching its procurement software as a way to replace spreadsheet-driven coordination with a shared record tied to the schedule. - On a compressed student housing project, Swinerton says that shift reduced manual work and improved visibility for project engineers and trade partners. - The case study highlights a broader construction problem: fragmented information can slow procurement, approvals and delivery planning.

What happened: - PLOT published an Oct. 6, 2026 case study on Swinerton’s use of its software on Apartment 2 of San Diego State University’s SDSU Evolve student housing project. - Swinerton’s three-person team estimates PLOT saves 14 to 16 hours per week. - The case is available at the full report. - Swinerton began using PLOT in early May 2026. - The case follows the team from manual spreadsheet tracking through software selection, integration and daily use with trade partners.

The details: - Swinerton replaced its Excel procurement log with PLOT to track materials, technical approvals, schedule dates and delivery scheduling in one view. - Trade partners update procurement information directly in PLOT. - Project engineers can see those updates alongside installation dates. - Apartment 2 is an 11-story building with nine apartments per floor. - Each apartment includes three bedrooms, shared living and kitchen areas, and full bathrooms, according to the case study. - The project involves dozens of trade partners working on a compressed timeline. - Rico Quinta, senior project engineer at Swinerton, said the old process required manual data entry from subcontractor logs into the spreadsheet. - The team also had to reconcile dates between Primavera P6 scheduling software and material delivery timelines. - Submittals were tracked in Autodesk Forma, formerly Autodesk Construction Cloud. - PLOT’s case study says seven trade partners updated procurement dates in the platform and 10 trades scheduled deliveries through it. - PLOT’s published breakdown says the estimated time savings include about eight hours a week in field management and trade partner coordination, six to eight hours a week in office and back-office work, and about 10 minutes saved per hour of meeting time. - The case study says PLOT pulls submittal status from Forma and flags items at risk of falling behind. - Swinerton connected PLOT to its existing Autodesk Forma environment, where trade partner and submittal data already resided. - PLOT reads data from Forma and does not write back to it, according to the case study. - The schedule workflow uses revised P6 uploads and linked activity codes so associated material dates update automatically. - PLOT’s broader integration documentation also lists Procore connections for trade contractor and user information, submittals and schedule activities. - PLOT says it completed a SOC 2 Type II audit covering the Security trust services criteria. - The company says an independent auditor tested its operating controls and that the report is available under nondisclosure agreement to qualifying organizations.

Between the lines: - The case study shows that PLOT’s value proposition is not just tracking materials. It is connecting procurement, submittals, lead times and delivery dates to the critical path schedule. - Swinerton’s use case also suggests the software is designed for field users who need daily input, not just back-office reporting. - Monika Iannone, Swinerton project executive, said the team chose PLOT after evaluating four options because it offered visibility without added complexity. - Iannone also said the platform supported subcontractor collaboration and helped reduce risk while improving procurement clarity. - Quinta said the system needed to be easy for someone with limited technology experience to use daily. - Wes Hills, project manager at trade partner A.O. Reed & Co., said the platform let the team update the schedule more often instead of waiting for a monthly update and reworking a spreadsheet. - PLOT’s broader procurement guidance frames the workflow as planning, selection, administration and closing, with administration covering review, fabrication, shipping and delivery progress. - The company’s public template and workflow docs show the product is built around backward planning from required-on-jobsite dates, lead times and review durations.

What's next: - PLOT says delivery scheduling is the next area of expanding use on Apartment 2 as more trade partners join the workflow. - Quinta said truck arrivals, crane windows and traffic control are practical uses for the delivery scheduler as site activity increases. - The Swinerton team has also shared its setup with another Swinerton project team in preconstruction. - Iannone linked broader use to executive oversight, staffing planning and earlier identification of procurement risk. - PLOT continues to promote its open-source procurement log spreadsheet template for contractors still working in Excel. - The company says the template supports imported CPM schedule activities and submittal information, with version 1.1 adding a material status column driven by actual milestone dates.

The bottom line: - Swinerton’s case study gives PLOT a concrete proof point: fewer manual handoffs, tighter schedule alignment and measurable time savings on a live project.