Built Logic

40 hours a week back for a commercial and projects team of 10

A housebuilder trained its commercial and projects team on Copilot over 8 weeks. Between them they got back a full working week, every week, and ran a fifth site without the extra QS they’d been about to hire.

Could this work for our team?

Key results

  • 45 → 15 minsChecking a subcontractor application
  • 8 → 3 hoursCost to complete, each site, each month
  • 64 → 24 hoursAll 7 jobs, the whole team, each week
The business
Housebuilder
Service
Copilot Training
Trained in
8 weeks
Paid back in
Approx 8 weeks
Size
Team of 10 trained

Background

The business was growing. 4 live sites, a fifth starting in the spring, and the same commercial and projects team of 10 that had run 3. They had a good team, and the commercial director wanted to keep it.

The challenge

Each month more of their week went on paperwork. The QSs checked about 30 subcontractor applications a week against the plot-stage report, and the cost to complete took about a day a month on each site. The full check against the appraisal waited for the quarterly forecast.

Before advertising for another QS, the MD asked each person to log a normal week. Across the 10 of them, 7 jobs took 64 hours a week.

They had the free Copilot Chat, and moved to Microsoft 365 Copilot licences for the training. The QSs wanted proof on numbers, and a clear rule on what could go in.

2,900 hoursa year on 7 jobs Copilot could help with

The solution

The training ran for 8 weeks on their own live work. Every session used that week’s applications and cost reports, so nothing got left behind. The directors went first, so the teams saw them using it, and each team had a champion to keep it going.

What the 8 weeks covered

  • Directors first. A session on their own in week 1. Then all 10 timed their jobs and signed a one-page AI policy.
  • Commercial. Hands-on sessions on applications, then applications against the plot-stage report, then the cost to complete against the appraisal.
  • Projects. Site reports, programme updates, customer extras and site instructions.
  • The 3 checks. Every fact has its source next to it, every number gets worked out again in the spreadsheet, and whoever’s name is on it reads the lot.

Tech stack

It runs on their own Microsoft 365. It works alongside the tools they already use.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Excel Outlook Teams Word SharePoint Causeway Sage Asta Powerproject

The results

  1. 01

    A fifth site, with no extra QS

    When the fifth site started in the spring, the same team of 10 ran it, with no new hire, on a bigger turnover.

  2. 02

    £24,000 held on one site’s brickwork

    The first monthly appraisal check, in week 6, found brickwork tracking £1,600 a plot over the appraisal, with 24 plots to go. A detail change and a fixed rate with the bricklayer held £1,000 a plot.

  3. 03

    10 of 10 using it every week

    In week 1, 2 of them had tried it. Average confidence went from 3.4 out of 10 to 7.6.

  4. 04

    The appraisal checked every month, not every quarter

    It used to wait for the quarterly forecast.

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