Loudoun County Public Schools

Goal

Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) needed an owner-centric project management tool that could be used by both internal and external stakeholders.

Challenge

The 3rd largest school division in Virginia, LCPS serves a rapidly growing district just outside Washington, D.C. and has a large capital program with an average budget of $141 million per year, encompassing many sites and project types.

Solution

e-Builder provides a central hub for project information and LCPS utilizes it for a wide variety of processes and reports.

Ongoing Benefits

With an unlimited license, LCPS’s Planning and Facilities personnel are now using e-Builder as well. School Principals may be using e-Builder in the future to access O&M information.

Loudoun County Public Schools is the third largest school division in Virginia and serves more than 80,000 students in 97 facilities. The district operates 19 high schools, 17 middle schools, 61 elementary schools and two educational centers. LCPS’s capital program has an average annual budget of $141 million and is currently in the process of building two new schools.

"We’ve shown that e-Builder can be easily accessed and we have our document structure locked down tight so they know where to look for what they need.”

—Teresa Lehmer, Information Technology Specialist | LCPS

Ensuring Buy-In from Diverse Users

To manage projects, LCPS migrated from Prolog to e-Builder in 2019 after reviewing several other solutions. LCPS involved everyone from the construction team in the selection process, including project managers, finance team members, and designers.

“We even brought in one of our favorite architects and one of our favorite general contractors to sit in on the process from beginning to end, because we want our collaborators to be happy as well,” says Teresa Lehmer, Information Technology Specialist with LCPS. “I created sheets with pros and cons of each system that we filled out, and we determined that e-Builder hit most of what we needed.”

Expanding e-Builder’s Reach

Today, LCPS has 361 e-Builder users after expanding to an unlimited license subscription. “We didn’t start out with unlimited because we weren’t planning to involve some of the other people from LCPS, but now they’ve migrated data into the system,” says Lehmer.

“It’s kind of exciting—in addition to Construction and Design, we have Planning, Facilities folks, and our accounting team all participating. We believe the School Principals may utilize it too. We’ve shown that e-Builder can be easily accessed and we have our document structure locked down tight so they know where to look for what they need.”

“e-Builder has saved us a lot of time and I absolutely believe it’s saved us money, too. It does a great job streamlining processes and bringing many folks together in the same system.”

—Teresa Lehmer, Information Technology Specialist | LCPS

*Hovatter Elementary School that it achieved an Energy Star Perfect Score of 100

Enabling Remote Work

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Lehmer says the transition to remote work was relatively simple because everyone was already using e-Builder for most processes. “Even today, most people work from home for three days a week or more,” says Lehmer. “It’s helpful and cost-effective to have that flexibility.”

Since adopting the solution in 2019, LCPS has reaped a number of benefits from e-Builder. “e-Builder has saved us a lot of time,” says Lehmer, “and I absolutely believe it’s saved us money, too. It does a great job streamlining processes and bringing many folks together in the same system.”

About e-Builder

e-Builder has more than 25 years of experience supporting owners like you in managing capital improvement projects.

e-Builder Enterprise automates information handoffs between designers, contractors, consultants and owners through a best-in-class workflow engine that transforms old paper processes to digital.

The best way to understand how e-Builder Enterprise can transform your capital program management is to see it for yourself.