Kane Group

Four document controllers each reported saving two days per week , totalling 256 hours per month of manual effort eliminated. Time previously spent on manual data entry, colouring cells, copying between tabs, and chasing missing information is now fully automated. The system scaled from an initial pilot to 11 active projects with 60 users engaging daily, from design team members and document controllers to procurement, pre-construction, and site teams.

All data from Viewpoint and external CDEs like Conject and Asite is synced automatically every night. Internal revision numbers are compared against external CDE revisions in real time, so when Kane issues a drawing, the team can immediately verify it appeared on the client’s system with the correct revision. Status codes sync automatically from external CDEs. Drawings move between views , withdrawn, site only, internal issue only , based on document type changes, eliminating the manual copy-paste between Excel tabs that used to consume hours.

Project summary reports and client progress reports are generated instantly from Morta data, replacing manually created Excel reports. Kane is planning to migrate these dashboards to Morta’s native charting to eliminate the Power BI license dependency. And the entire implementation across all 11 projects and 60 users is built and maintained by Kasia Russek alone.

As Kane Group grew, the volume of design drawings, technical submittals, and project data increased dramatically. More projects meant more manual work and more mistakes. All data updates were performed by hand , manual colouring of cells, manual date entry, manual status tracking, and manual copying between tabs. Every revision, every status change, and every new drawing required someone to physically update a spreadsheet.

Project information was fragmented across numerous Excel spreadsheets and folder structures with no single source of truth for design status. Kane’s internal tracking was completely disconnected from client common data environments , there was no way to automatically verify whether issued drawings had actually appeared on the client’s system, or to track external status code assignments without manual checking.

Manual data entry led to duplicated drawing numbers and descriptions creeping into trackers. These duplications cascaded into wrong calculations, which produced wrong reports. There is nothing worse than going through each revision, status, or date and looking for that missing slash somewhere. What worked for a handful of projects became unmanageable as the project count grew, and the design office needed a system that could handle multiple concurrent projects without proportionally increasing administrative overhead.

Kasia designed the entire system around the Internal Release Schedule as the master table from which everything flows. It contains the complete list of drawings with descriptions, planned issue dates, actual issue dates, responsible persons, document types, and fortnightly meeting comments. From the first issue date onward, everything is automated , no manual input needed.

The IRS is sliced into filtered views for every stakeholder: a TIDP view for client-facing deliverable tracking, workload by person showing each team member’s drawing assignments and status, overdue items for immediate action, preliminary status views for items requiring response, construction status views for revision requirements, a programme drop line view for pre-construction teams, and automated tabs for withdrawn, site only, and internal issue only items. All the movements between tables are automated , if any drawing is not required anymore, changing the document type to withdrawn moves it to the withdrawn tab automatically.

Morta connects to Kane’s internal CDE (Viewpoint) and multiple client CDEs including Conject, Asite, and others, syncing revision numbers, status codes, upload dates, and document metadata daily. Technical submittal tracking is split by mechanical and electrical disciplines, with procurement teams having dedicated columns for order information. An RFI tracker shows open, closed, and resolved requests across all projects. A model tracker monitors third-party model updates and flags when Kane’s design team needs to update their work. And a design information tracker ensures document control knows immediately when external parties update their submissions. All of this feeds into Power BI for project summary reports and client progress reports shared weekly.

The original plan was simply to create an Internal Release Schedule to replace the Excel tracker. Once the IRS was built and the automated CDE integration was working, the potential for expansion became immediately clear. Kasia progressively added views for different needs , TIDP views, workload by person, overdue items, status-specific views, revision tracking, and programme drop line views. Each addressed a specific user need without requiring additional data entry.

Once the IRS is set up with CDE integrations, data flows are almost entirely automated. First issue dates, revision comparisons, status syncs, overdue calculations, and time-with-client tracking all happen without manual input. This is the key reason one person can manage 11 projects. Each project may connect to different client CDEs , Conject, Asite, Viewpoint, and others , but the structure remains consistent. The system accommodates variation in client environments while maintaining a standardised internal tracking approach.

Clients can log into Morta directly and see fresh information every day, or data can be exported to Excel for distribution. Kane is actively planning to move reporting from Power BI to Morta’s native dashboards, which would eliminate the need for separate Power BI licenses and keep all data and visualisation within a single platform.