How Salem Constructors Consolidated Project Management for a $38M Wastewater Project: Contracts, Change Orders, RFIs, and Submittals in One Platform
Gabe Weiss
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Project Manager
at
Salem Constructors
Salem Constructors needed a construction project management platform that could handle the full scope of a $38M public infrastructure job, not just one piece of it. On their Wastewater Treatment Plant Improvements project in Salem, Oregon, Project Manager Gabe Weiss replaced four disconnected tools with SubmittalLink, consolidating project financials, contracts, change orders, submittals, RFIs, and drawing management into a single project management hub. The result: 300+ hours saved, zero lost documentation, and a project closeout that didn’t require a scramble.
Challenge
- Submittal and RFI logs tracked manually in Excel, updated after every exchange
- Drawing revisions stored in a shared Google Drive with no version control or audit trail
- Subcontractor contracts and executed agreements managed in a separate tool, disconnected from field activity
- Change orders tracked in yet another spreadsheet, with approval status updated by hand
Solution
- Contracts and subcontractor agreements were stored, executed, and tracked inside the platform, linked directly to the relevant scope
- Change orders were created, routed for approval, and logged against the contract value in real time, giving Gabe a live view of project financials at all times
- Submittals and RFIs were logged once and routed automatically to the engineer of record, with consultants responding directly on SubmittalLink platform
- Drawing revisions were uploaded, version-controlled, and accessible to the field team alongside all other project documents
Results
- Replaced 4 disconnected tools with a single construction project management platform
- Saved 80+ hours of manual reconciliation, status chasing, and duplicate data entry
- Managed 60+ change orders with real-time approval tracking, zero lost or unexecuted documents
- Reduced owner status reporting from half a day to under 30 minutes
- Closed out the project with every contract, change order, submittal, RFI, and drawing organized in one system
Challenge
Salem Constructors was running a complex municipal project with strict documentation requirements and a lot of moving parts. Like many general contractors, they were managing project information across a fragmented stack of tools, none of which talked to each other. With over 500 submittals, 180 RFIs, and 60+ change orders across the project lifecycle, the overhead of keeping four systems in sync was enormous. Gabe’s team spent hours each week reconciling data, re-sending files, and manually notifying subcontractors of updates. On a public works job where documentation is scrutinized closely, the risk of something falling through the cracks was unacceptable. What the team needed wasn’t another point solution for one piece of the workflow. They needed a construction project management platform that could handle the whole project, financial documents and field documents together, in one place.
Solution
Salem Constructors adopted SubmittalLink as their central project management platform for the job. Rather than maintaining a separate tool for each document type, Gabe’s team ran the entire project, financial and field, from one dashboard. Because all project data lived in one platform, subcontractors and consultants were automatically notified of updates. Gabe’s team stopped managing information across tools and started managing the project. When the owner’s rep needed a status report, Gabe could produce it in minutes, not hours.
Results
By moving to SubmittalLink as their end-to-end project management platform, Salem Constructors eliminated the administrative overhead of running disconnected tools and finished with airtight documentation ready for owner turnover.
“SubmittalLink became our project management hub. Financials, field docs, drawings. Everything in one place. I’d use it on every job going forward.”
- Gabe W., Project Manager, Salem Constructors