Perkins&Will and UT Southwestern Medical Center Discuss Collaboration and Streamlining Operations

In our Expert Insights Webinar, we brought AEC and Owner industry professionals to discuss how they’re streamlining operations and driving collaboration throughout the creation and management of design documents.

Read what Holly Jordan, FCSI, CCS, LEED AP BD+C Director of Specifications, Perkins&Will and Myrna Rodriguez, MBA, RA, CDT, CSI Design Manager, UT Southwestern Medical Center had to say:

Sara Shuman: I understand that Perkins&Will and UT Southwestern Medical Center have been working closely together to update masters — could you start us off with what that process has been like and speak to some of the collaboration efforts between architect and owner there?

Holly Jordan: The first thing – what’s most important – is getting to know exactly what your owner wants. We started off with having a kickoff meeting with our owner, UT Southwestern and some of their subject matter experts – the engineers, the architects, and the interiors team – and we tried to get a feel for what exactly they wanted. Especially the engineers – they have their own documents that they wanted to import – so we started off with importing their documents into SpecLink.

One of the things that really streamlines the whole process is instead of sending emails back and forth constantly is that there’s one person, one contact, with Perkins&Will and one with the client – and that helps so that you’re not getting so many emails back and forth.

Then, when you start utilizing the software, it really streamlines the process by using the comment feature right in the document. So, instead of having to go somewhere else and look to see what needs to be updated or commented on, the comments are right there in SpecLink.

Using a cloud-based, digital platform – rather than using a word document and emails streamlines the whole process.

Myrna Rodriguez: What helped us the most in streamlining operations and having others contribute is that we’ve given them a level of comfort to comment by using the software – facility management felt like they were able to be part of the effort and collaborate. Having Holly and Perkins&Will in the same platform with us and helping us through the process was incredibly helpful.

There was a learning curve, but it was absolutely worth it. Once we got through that – we were immediately able to see the fruits of our labor.

Want to learn more about how you and your team can leverage SpecLink to streamline operations and collaborate throughout the design phase? Click here to get a free trial of BSD SpecLink.