Case Study: VAICO achieves 92% faster report turnaround and major time and cost savings with PlanGrid Build

How VAICO’s Outstanding Field Collaboration and Communication Helped a Community Recover from an Earthquake

VAICO, an Auckland-based seismic bracing design and engineering firm, was brought into Christchurch’s post‑quake rebuild to help address widespread structural damage. The team faced outdated or missing as‑built drawings, paper-based plans, and poor field-to-design communication — problems that made inspection accountability and construction quality management nearly impossible across numerous complex retrofit sites and with an international design partner.

VAICO adopted PlanGrid (Autodesk Construction Cloud) to digitize drawings, push updates in real time, and use punch lists with photos for inspections. The cloud workflow improved onsite collaboration and accountability, was rolled out across 150+ projects, and delivered measurable gains: a 92% drop in report turnaround time, elimination of paper costs, 250+ inspection reports by one user in 12 months (saving roughly 210–250 hours on that job), and markedly better compliance and quality tracking.

VAICO

Caleb How

Project Manager