By centralizing procurement, submittals, schedule tracking, and delivery scheduling in one platform, Swinerton's three-person project team saves an estimated 14 to 16 hours per week, freeing their engineers to focus on the work that actually moves a project forward.
By centralizing procurement, submittals, schedule tracking, and delivery scheduling in one platform, Swinerton's three-person project team saves an estimated 14 to 16hours per week, freeing their engineers to focus on the work that actually moves a project forward.
Swinerton is one of the largest general contractors in the United States, with a long track record across commercial, multifamily, and higher education sectors. The team featured in this case study is building Apartment 2 of the SDSU Evolve complex at San Diego State University, the largest student housing project in SDSU history, which will deliver over 3,640 new student beds and a centralized community center. At 11 stories, Apartment 2 includes nine apartments per floor, each with three individual bedrooms, shared living and kitchen areas, and full bathrooms. Managing procurement on a project of this scale, with dozens of trade partners and a compressed timeline, demands a high degree of coordination.
Before PLOT, Swinerton tracked all procurement in an Excel spreadsheet, the way much of the industry still does. The process was slow and labor-intensive. Subcontractors had to be chased down for updates, every piece of information had to be manually re-entered, and matching P6 schedule dates to material delivery dates took extra steps just to get everything in one place.
Rico Quinta, Senior Project Engineer with Swinerton, came up through the field before moving into engineering. He started as a general laborer in 1999, worked as a concrete foreman on bridge projects in Canada, then returned to school for civil engineering. He joined Swinerton shortly after graduating and brings deep field insight to every project he's part of, including Apartment 2.
Now focused on procurement, Rico describes the spreadsheet experience that is all too common across the industry: “It was all manual data entry. We were relying on subs to provide us with their updated procurement logs, and then having to manually enter that into our spreadsheet so we could track it.”
With submittalsmanaged in Autodesk Forma (formerly Autodesk Construction Cloud) and scheduleactivity in P6, staying on top of procurement meant constantly switchingbetween systems, cross-referencing dates, and manually checking criticaldetails.
Looking for a better solution, Project Executive Monika Iannone and Project Manager Kian Kemp led a formal evaluation of four procurement software options before selecting PLOT. Their requirements were clear. They wanted something genuinely easy to use that got the job done, not the next shiny, feature-heavy platform.
“We looked at four options, and the question for us was simple: How will our teams interact with this tool daily? PLOT gave us the visibility we needed without the complexity that slows adoption. It also provided a hub that encouraged subcontractor collaboration. We wanted a simple, effective solution that felt intuitive, while reducing risk and providing clarity around procurement.”
Monika Iannone, Project Executive,Swinerton
“Some other solutions had really detailed, structured procurement, but we wanted something simplified,” Rico noted. “Someone like me, a former trades person with minimal experience in technology, needed to be able to easily input items and track them on a daily basis.”
PLOT stood out for its interface and value. The team described it as simple and intuitive without sacrificing the depth a complex commercial project requires.
“The system adeptly handles the many-to-one and one-to-many relationships that are typical between construction submittals and material procurement,” Monika said.“Additionally, PLOT integrates with ACC and P6, so once the tool is set up, our team is not wasting time entering the same information in multiple platforms.”
That combination of ease of use and capability drove the decision.
The team began using PLOT in early May 2026 and connected it to their existing Autodesk Forma environment. Since all trade partner and submittal data already lived in Forma, the integration was the logical next step toward automating data flow.
Before theconnection could go live, Swinerton's IT department needed to confirm PLOT wassafe to connect to their network. PLOT's onboarding documentation laid out thetechnical steps clearly, and Chris Callen, PLOT's Founder and CEO, joined acall to walk IT through exactly how the platform interacts with Forma,confirming that PLOT reads data from Forma and never writes back to it.
“Once PLOT showed exactly how the platform works, that was it,” Rico said. “After that, the actual linking of Autodesk to PLOT was a very easy experience, and extremely useful. We were already using Forma, so having the integration between the two was a very simple process once IT was on board.”
Swinerton's IT team approved PLOT on the strength of its transparency and documentation. PLOT has since completed its SOC 2 Type II certification, formalizing that same standard. Enterprise IT and security teams now have an independently audited way to confirm that PLOT's controls are complete, consistently followed, and verified, creating a faster, more confident path from vendor evaluation to active integration. https://www.getplot.com/latest-news/plot-completes-soc-2-type-ii-audit
Real-time updates. The biggest shift was eliminating the manual procurement log.Instead of waiting for weekly subcontractor updates and re-entering the data by hand, seven trade partners now update order status and lead times directly inPLOT, and the Swinerton team sees changes in real time.
Submittal reminders. The Forma integration adds another layer of value. PLOT pulls submittal status directly from Forma and flags items at risk of falling behind, giving the team visibility beyond what Forma alone provides.
“One thing Ireally value is having PLOT as an added layer of reminders when submittals aredue,” Rico said. “It's not just for procurement of items. It also helps withthe acceptance process for submittals.”
Schedule automation. Rather than maintaining P6 and a procurement log side by side and reconciling dates by hand, the team uploads their revised schedule to PLOT and links activity codes directly to procurement items. When a schedule date changes, the associated material dates update automatically.
Centralized data. The benefit shows up immediately in meetings. Instead of toggling between P6, Forma, and Excel, the team pulls up a single view in PLOT showing procurement status, submittal status, and scheduled delivery and installation dates together.
“It's actually three different software merged into one. Wecan just use PLOT as the tracker.”
Rico Quinta, Senior Project Engineer,Swinerton
The trade partner view. The benefits reach beyond the GC team. Trade partners onApartment 2 who once maintained their own tracking spreadsheets are seeing the difference too.
“I'll be honest, when I first heard Swinerton was going to be implementing this software, my gut reaction was ‘Uh oh, this is gonna suck!’ But I actually like PLOT a lot now, and I hope this gets implemented on every project I work on. I like it mostly because it allows you guys to update the schedule directly and more often, rather than me waiting for a monthly schedule update and then having to extract the info I need to update my big ugly Excel spreadsheet that just tries to do the same thing as PLOT.”
Wes Hills, Project Manager, A.O. Reed& Co.
Estimated by Swinerton's three-person project team
~8 hours savedper week in field management and trade partner coordination
6 to 8 hours saved per week in office and back-office processes
~10 minutes saved per hour of meeting time
7 trades actively updating procurement dates in PLOT
10 trades scheduling deliveries through PLOT
The Swinerton team is still early in their use of PLOT, with Apartment 2 in the early stages of construction. Ten trades are already scheduling deliveries through PLOT, and the jobsite dashboard and delivery scheduler are expected to become even more valuable as more trade partners come on board and site activity ramps up.
Rico sees the delivery scheduler as key to managing site logistics as the project intensifies: keeping trucks from stacking up, coordinating crane windows, and reducing the unplanned congestion that creates safety risks on dense urban sites.
“Using the delivery scheduler once subs are fully on board is going to be super helpful,”he said. “Not having trucks lined up down the street, being able to schedule a crane in a specific time frame, manage traffic control. I can see that as a really valuable tool.”
The team hasalready shared their PLOT setup with another Swinerton project team inpre-construction, walking them through their onboarding process and bestpractices. For leadership, broader adoption means more than time savings.
“PLOT providesa level of executive oversight that allows for better decision making andstaffing planning,” Monika said. “I am excited to see the opportunities as PLOTis adopted on more projects. We will have access to new data and metrics thatwill allow us to reduce procurement risks earlier in the design and buyout ofprojects.”
“Using Excel spreadsheets takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of coordination across multiple teams. Instead of subs making their own spreadsheet and supplying it to us for re-entry, now we can use one platform on both ends to easily update information.”
Rico Quinta, Senior Project Engineer,Swinerton
