Case study
How Hensel Phelps Turned Construction Data into Smarter Progress Tracking and Saved $342K
Challenges
Drowning in Data, Starving for Insight
At San Francisco International Airport, Hensel Phelps took on a massive challenge: delivering six-story, a multi million Executive and Operations Center in the heart of a live terminal. The building wasn’t just another office structure — it was designed to house the integrated operations center for the entire airport, complete with executive offices, security operations, and the country’s first AI-based command center. Logistically, it was intense. But the real challenge lay in how the team tracked progress.
Like many top ENR400 contractors, Hensel Phelps had state-of-the-art tools for capturing and gathering site data. But as Superintendent Garin Anderson explained, the challenge wasn’t in collecting information — it was in making sense of it.
- Progress updates were scattered.
- Trade walks were constant.
- Pay app reviews were slow and manual.
- And as changes poured in from designers mid-construction, the team had no scalable way to verify if field conditions matched expectations.
“It was death by walkthrough,” Garin explained. “One trade at a time. One scope at a time. And if the owner asked where something stood, we had to go figure it out all over again.”
Despite their best efforts, visibility was missing — and so was trust in the information at hand.
We were doing what every GC does — walking the floors, taking photos, marking up drawings. We had no shortage of data, but the challenge was turning it into something useful in the moment. Without that, it just sat there.
Garin Anderson, Superintendent @Hensel Phelps
Solution
Turning Site Captures into Jobsite Intelligence
When the team deployed Track3D during the project’s second phase, everything changed.
Track3D didn’t ask the team to overhaul their workflows. The field engineers still performed their routine 360° site walks. But before Track3D, those walks were purely for recordkeeping. The data they collected — whether from 360° photos, phone cameras, or even hand-marked drawings — sat passively in shared folders or local devices.
To make use of it, someone had to hunt through images, stitch together updates manually, cross-check them against printed plans, and then sync up with trade foremen to confirm what was actually done. It was a slow, repetitive cycle that relied heavily on memory, judgment, and physical presence.
Progress tracking meant walking each floor separately with every trade. A mechanical scope walk might take 30 to 60 minutes, and that process was repeated for framing, electrical, finishes, and so on.
With Track3D, that manual stitching process disappeared. Now, the same 360° walks fed into an AI-powered engine that segmented every captured frame, identified installed components, and mapped progress directly against the scope of work. Within hours, Garin and his team had a live, visual breakdown of progress by trade, floor, and zone.
We used to spend 20 hours a week just trying to verify progress. Now it’s an hour. We’re not chasing trades anymore — we’re making decisions.
The impact was immediate. Trade progress became both visual and measurable. Missed installations were flagged before they turned into costly rework.
“We caught a whole section of fire protection pipe that was missing — after we’d already paid for it,” Garin recalled. “They hadn’t told us, and we would’ve completely missed it if Track3D hadn’t shown that gap. That would’ve been a major hit if we found it after closeout.”
This was the first time I could sit at my desk, open my laptop, and know exactly what had been done. I didn’t have to walk the job, I didn’t have to call anyone — it was all there.
Midway through the build, Garin’s team encountered another challenge — they needed to start tracking lighting installations, a scope that hadn’t initially been part of the setup. When the requirement to track lighting installations arose mid-project, the team was able to configure Track3D’s Progress Track to capture and measure this new element with ease.
The platform’s flexible tracking capabilities meant that as long as an object was visually distinguishable, it could be incorporated into the workflow. Within days, lighting proress was being monitored alongside other trades, giving the team clear, measurable insights into install rates and potential delays.
Track3D became the team’s shared single source of truth.
- Project managers used it to validate percent complete during pay app reviews.
- Field engineers pulled up time-stamped images to coordinate across overlapping trades.
- The QC team relied on photo history to verify in-wall work without reopening walls.
- Even the schedulers referenced it to understand field bottlenecks when updating timelines
The Outcomes
2,964
Total Hours
Saved
$342k
Labor cost
savings
50%+
Reduction in
documentation time
3
Major reworks
avoided
20+
Job walks
consolidated
26
Sub trades
coordinated
Use Cases in the Field
1. Missing Fire Protection Pipes
2. Misaligned Ductwork
3. Omitted VAV Boxes
4. Trade Sequencing & Zone Control
5. Pay App Validation & Office Review
6. Quality Control Documentation & Commissioning
impact
Smarter Decisions, Fewer Mistakes, Faster Delivery
Track3D didn’t just improve documentation — it transformed how the Hensel Phelps team operated.
Over 2,900 hours of coordination time were saved. 20+ weekly job walks were consolidated into one. Field engineers spent less time collecting data and more time resolving issues. In Garin’s words, “It gave us the freedom to stop documenting everything manually and actually focus on the work.”
But more than saving time or money, Track3D gave the team greater confidence in their progress data, because every insight was backed by verified, measurable results. Each capture was transformed into accurate progress metrics that showed exactly what had been completed, broken down by trade and by zone.
Following the success at SFO, Hensel Phelps began expanding Track3D across other complex builds, where visibility, change, and coordination challenges can make or break delivery.
We weren’t trying to innovate for the sake of it. We just needed something that made sense of the chaos. Track3D turned out to be the one tool that actually did that.
Garin Anderson, Superintendent @Hensel Phelps
About Track 3D
Track3D, is transforming construction monitoring with AI-first Reality Intelligence Platform that integrates advanced AI with reality capture data to provide an unprecedented overview of construction monitoring. It ensures that every detail is tracked, progress is monitored, signifi- cantly reducing costly reworks and delays.
Learn more
https://track3d.ai
Contact
info@track3d.ai
About Client
Hensel Phelps is a large, employee-owned construction and real estate development company with a long history, founded in 1937.
They are known for their diverse portfolio of projects, including commercial, aviation, transportation, and government buildings, and for their commitment to safety and employee ownership.
🏆 Hensel Phelps is also listed as one of the top GCs in ENR400
Firm type
General Contractor
Products Used
- ProgressTrack
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