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Posted on 31 January 2010
Tags: Case Studies, Lucernex, Quanah Properties

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Case Study: Quanah Properties Implements Lx IWMS from Lucernex Technologies

Background

Dallas-based Quanah Properties, LP and its subsidiaries are led by a management team with more than 150 years of combined experience in real estate development and construction. Specializing in building and managing proven hospitality ventures, Quanah entered into an exclusive agreement with Value Place Franchise Services, LLC in 2004 to develop and own 74 Value Place extended-stay hotels in Texas, New Mexico, Florida and California.

Lucernex Technologies is a provider of powerful software tools designed to guide real estate developers and facility managers through the real estate development process. An innovative leader in Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) solutions for nearly 10 years, Lucernex Technologies enables Fortune 500 companies in the commercial real estate, hospitality, retail, construction and engineering industries in both the United States and Europe to better manage the development lifecycle.

The Challenge

When Quanah Properties first began its work with Value Place in 2004, it set a goal of building 74 locations across four different states. Quanah’s main operation in Dallas, as well as survey groups in California, began to simultaneously select and acquire property sites in multiple locations. Once a property was acquired by Quanah’s real estate department, it was handed over to Quanah’s entitlement department which was responsible for conducting the necessary due diligence to quickly ensure the project was not in violation of any local ordinances and that all local officials, councils and citizens were in agreement over the design of the hotel.

“It became obvious to us that both our real estate department and entitlement department were in need of a more specific, defined methodology for evaluating, selecting, acquiring and developing these Value Place sites,”

said Bruce Fry, vice president of development, Quanah Properties. “Both departments could currently be working on as many as 10 different locations, all in different stages of the development process, in Texas, California and Florida at the same time. We were in need of almost an assembly line-type procedure to ensure all of the properties were moving through the process efficiently.”

The largest challenge Quanah faced when attempting to streamline its development process was keeping track of the wide array of paperwork that needed to be shared between the real estate and entitlement departments in both California and Texas. Each purchased Value Place site produced a file that included a letter of intent, a contract of sale, any amendments that accompanied the contract as well as various photographs, maps and surveys. Throughout the entire development process, these documents were passed back and forth multiple times between departments and offices via FedEx, fax and email.

“Without any electronic means of storing these documents, we ended up with an avalanche of FedEx shipments, faxes and emails, and it was very challenging to stay focused on the most current version of a document,” said Fry. “There was no way for people in Dallas to be notified when a document was replaced or updated in California, while at the same time, people in California were duplicating documents that already existed in Dallas. We couldn’t help but have a large number of unnecessary phone calls back and forth trying to track down papers or missing information, which decreased productivity in both departments. We desperately needed a place to house all of our files electronically, where if one document was replaced, everyone working on that property would be notified, and there would be a way to monitor who had modified or replaced the document last.”

The Solution/Implementation

After evaluating several technology solutions available in the real estate market, Quanah realized that in order to be successful, it needed a solution that was completely Web-based that could be easily accessed on all of the staff’s various computer systems used in all of its different locations. Any technology product that required a standard operating system, or software or hardware installations, would not be a feasible solution for Quanah.

“I knew [Lucernex CEO] Mike Nuzum, and I was familiar with the work Lucernex Technologies was doing for real estate developers in the retail sector,” said Fry. “I contacted him to see if he knew of anything similar in the hospitality sector, and we determined that his product could be easily tailored to meet our specific needs, without any major modifications. That flexibility, in addition to the product being entirely Web-based, was what led us to choose Lx IWMS.” The implementation of Lx IWMS at Quanah properties took about six months.

Initially, Lucernex staff scheduled appointments at Quanah’s offices to meet with each of the departments that would be utilizing the software, including accounting, entitlement, real estate and construction, and each department provided feedback as to what specific needs the product needed to address to be effective. Once the product was sufficiently configured, numerous training sessions were held both on-site at Quanah and at Lucernex to teach all of Quanah’s employees how to use the solution. It was important to Quanah to select a company that would provide the necessary amount of in-person, phone and online training and customer support to make sure its staff would best utilize the product.

“From the beginning, we were very impressed with how accessible the high-level executives at Lucernex were,” said Fry. “We were never passed along to an outsourced customer service help desk and never left waiting on hold. Whenever an issue would arise, Lucernex’s team was available to us and quick to respond, and that was very important to us.”

Results/Benefits

Since implementing Lx IWMS in 2005, Quanah Properties has experienced reduced costs and increased efficiency and productivity as it continues to develop Value Place locations in multiple states.

“Working with Lx IWMS has clearly defined our work process, step-by-step, enabling us to perform the same function over and over again efficiently and quickly from anywhere in the world,” said Fry. “Because people are now able to access our system from any location, it has reduced the number of people we need on the ground to complete projects, and we no longer need to FedEx documents.”

Using Lucernex’s technology has also reduced stress on Quanah’s staff due to its ability to alert users of important upcoming deadlines and potential critical issues. The system’s built-in alarm system gives everyone piece of mind knowing that nothing will slip through the cracks and lead to a potentially costly delay in the opening of a location.

Fry also reports that his staff’s productivity has improved because now that everything is visible to all users within the Lx IWMS program, everyone is more accountable for their work. Lx IWMS creates a virtual “paper trail” to see when documents are modified, when emails are sent, received, opened and answered, when links are clicked on, etc., making it easy to track the progress of a project and see exactly when and where it is being held up. The end result is employees who are more attentive to their work and a faster turnaround time on projects. Quanah Properties attributes the success of the Lx IWMS implementation to the real-life experience of the Lucernex executive team in the commercial real estate industry.

“One of the biggest problems you run into today is that a software company can be fantastic at programming and offer you the latest and greatest in graphics, but if they’ve never worked a day in your business, they can’t truly understand what you’re up against,” said Fry. “Lucernex is run by people who have been extremely active and successful in retail development and management, and they know what it’s like to do this entire job on a legal pad, so they easily understand how to blend IT into the process to create a system that works in a real-life situation. The worlds of hospitality and IT speak two different languages, and Lucernex has provided us with the perfect blend of both.”