Building a defensible audit trail for heavy infrastructure projects

The Challenge

Large and ambitious infrastructure projects generate huge amounts of project data and require ongoing and seamless quality compliance. When data is scattered across several, disconnected systems, whether paper, emails, and spreadsheets, and without a single owner, piecing together the data is a challenge.

The Kilshane 220kV GIS substation near Dublin is being developed by specialist renewables contractor Adman. It will bring energy to support both local communities and the growing, power-hungry data centres that are being built in the area. The contract is complex, and scope and site elements have required ongoing discussions and clarification. Without a defensible record, that risks becoming a commercially exposed position that’s hard to defend in an audit.

The Solution

Adman used Procore to help reorganise its site-to-office data pipeline and build commercial certainty. Now all project information is actively connected in one governed environment, not in five. Data is time-stamped and geo-located. Contract scopes are linked directly in one common data environment (CDE) that allows everyone to work off the same real-time information. Procore helps give the project team, whether on site or in the office, the confidence that the work being delivered is being recorded at the time it is done.   

The Results

• 90% of site audits can be conducted remotely thanks to time-stamped and geo-located data
• A more efficient process for sharing weekly photo compliance reports with client
• Simple sharing of drawing reviews, submittals, and RFIs — no more printing and marking up paper documents

Keeping Track of Data for Quality Compliance

With complex infrastructure projects there’s a lot riding on getting the scope and the details right. Once complete, the Kilshane substation will connect a gas power plant to the national grid. Adman won the full turnkey contract to design and build the site and execute the heavy civil work: ground levelling, drainage, and building concrete foundations ahead of the full electrical fit out. 

Managing the delivery of massive infrastructure with paper drawings and disconnected files can be chaotic. This physical friction is exactly what exposes contractors to scope disputes and indefensible claims. Keeping track of progress and evidencing every stage is crucial. 

Adman’s contracts manager, Oisin Boyle, is under no illusion about how much harder that would be without Procore: “If we didn't have Procore our printer would be a lot busier. We'd be printing off multiple documents every day: pyramids, diaries, QA documents, and quality assurance documents. All of that would mean having to go back to being paper-based, which ultimately means you're going back 10 or 15 years.”

Everything in One Place, Accessed by Everyone

Before adopting Procore, Adman’s processes involved a lot of manual chasing. Dean Maguire, quality manager at Adman, has little nostalgia for the old routine.

“Everything was a Word document or Excel form, it was all saved on people's desktops and on different hubs. We had four or five different systems that we were able to amalgamate into one when we got Procore.”

Now key project data is recorded in one place that’s accessible to the wider project team.

 “It's a great way of capturing a lot of detail in one tool, like your photographs, files, drawings, and commentary, but mainly your approvals and your timestamps to make sure everybody knows how and when something was signed off.” 

With drawings, documents, and quality execution connected in one CDE, the project team can maintain a clear audit trail for decisions made on the Kilshane project. “It really means that you can plan and make sure that you're not leaving anything behind,” says Maguire. 

Clear Metadata to Support Commercial Certainty 

By the time the substation is ready for planned operations in 2029, Adman will hold an extensive record of project data designed to help support their position in the event of any pushback. 

Oisin notes: “Sometimes there are challenges over scope, or how elements have been carried out on a site, it's been very easy for us to provide a photo report from the timestamped images that we have in Procore to demonstrate to the client that works have been completed in the correct manner." 

For a critical infrastructure project like Kilshane, having a clear, defensible record of how it was built helps instil confidence along the chain of accountability. Dean agrees: “It means that everybody from a director to a contracts manager, down to an auditor, or a design team can see everything all at one time, and all provided with the right permissions. It's a real key element of making sure that everybody is working off of the latest and most accurate data.”