Midsouth Planroom logo
By Ed Avis
Chris McNally, owner of Memphis Reprographics, says his firm has accessed countless online planroom systems on behalf of clients, including popular systems such as ProCore, BidClerk, Smart Bid and Egnyte. He says they seem to have one common characteristic: Some users find them cumbersome and complex.
“After working within these platforms, we began to notice a trend for subcontractors and suppliers, particularly as it relates to accessing these platforms: Many find them hard to access, even with a username and password,” McNally says.
When users find a system hard to use, they tend to use it less or not at all. And when they do use it, they have less time to spend on their regular tasks.
So McNally partnered with two local builders’ organizations to create a simplified online document management system, called Midsouth Planroom. The planroom is hosted through ReproConnect and offers free access to the documents to anyone involved in the bidding process. There is no cost to project owners – they simply send the digital files to the planroom, and the firm hosts and advertises the projects.
“The goal of Midsouth Planroom is a simplified public portal for viewing, downloading, and ordering plans, allowing for easier accessibility to the data and project information,” McNally explains.
Naturally, Memphis Reprographics stands to benefit from the public planroom when subcontractors order documents, but McNally is donating 20 percent of the revenue to the partner organizations, Associated Builders & Contractors of West Tennessee (WTABC) and Memphis Area Minority Contractors Association (MAMCA).
Helping Smaller Companies
An advantage of Midsouth Planroom is that it makes the documents publicly available to smaller firms that may have been left out of the bidding process of some jobs previously.
“A big disparity for suppliers, vendors, and small businesses (including minority/wbe) is not being able to view projects online, not knowing who is bidding or has been awarded projects,” McNally says. “We are working to help better inform these groups so that it can increase local bid response and revenue for Midsouth businesses.”
The partner organizations confirm this focus: “MAMCA is collaborating with Memphis Reprographics to ensure that minority contractors can easily have access to plans and bid opportunities,” says Stephanie Alexander, that organization’s executive director. “Having these types of resources at your fingertips will be a game changer for their companies.”
“The new planroom will give ALL members of the construction industry in West Tennessee access to high quality plans, allowing them to be more productive in their businesses on a day to day basis and make the bidding process more seamless from beginning to end,” said Amber Harris, president and CEO of WTABC.
Good Response So Far
Midsouth Planroom was just launched in October, but the list of jobs available is already long. As of November 18, there were 31 projects listed, ranging from the renovation of bathrooms in a Memphis Housing Authority facility to construction of a new one-story county justice center.
“We are still in the infancy of the launch but have already received feedback from several municipalities, architecture and engineering firms, and several project owners that are excited to host their projects in the new project planroom,” McNally says. “We are working with both associations on coordinate launches, webinars, training tools, and social campaigns to continue to educate and raise awareness. This is something we have been looking at for quite some time, but wanted to ensure we had good market research on what was needed, and how it could be beneficial and scalable.”