ESI Group USA Prevents In-wall Rework

• Embed error caught before walls closed
• Avoided costly demolition and rework
• Remote QC kept project on schedule

ESI Group USA needed a way to keep close oversight of a 350,000-square-foot design-build project for US Foods while much of its team worked remotely during the pandemic. The project involved frequent design changes, in-wall unit installations, and concrete pours, all of which needed to be verified against design intent before they became permanent and impossible to correct without demolition.

Reconstruct was selected because its digital twin platform let the team capture site conditions remotely and review them against the design in detail, rather than relying on someone physically walking the site. That remote visibility gave ESI's construction managers the ability to catch installation errors, like embeds placed in the wrong location, before walls were built and concrete was poured over them.

ESI Group USA's design-build project for US Foods involved a constant stream of design changes across a 350,000-square-foot facility, making it difficult to keep every trade aligned with the latest plans. In-wall units and other embedded elements needed to be installed in precise locations, since once walls went up and concrete was poured, any errors would be locked in place and far more expensive to correct.

The shift to remote work during the pandemic made this oversight even harder. With fewer people able to walk the site in person, ESI needed a way to verify as-built conditions against the design from a distance, catching problems like misplaced embeds while they could still be fixed instead of only discovering them after the fact.

Before using Reconstruct, ESI Group USA's team relied on in-person site visits and standard photo documentation to track construction progress and verify installed conditions against the design. On a project with as many moving parts as the US Foods distribution facility, that meant someone needed to be physically present to catch problems like misplaced embeds before they were sealed behind walls or under concrete.

That approach became far harder to sustain once much of the project team shifted to remote work during the pandemic. Without a way to closely inspect in-wall conditions from offsite, the team risked missing installation errors until after concrete had already been poured, when fixing them would mean costly demolition and rework.

Using Reconstruct's digital twin platform, ESI Group USA's construction managers were able to identify embedded elements that had been installed 8 inches off their intended location, catching the error before the surrounding walls were built and concrete was poured over them. Discovering the mistake at that stage meant the fix was simple rather than requiring costly demolition and rework.

Because the platform let the team review site conditions remotely against the design, ESI could maintain the same level of quality oversight it had before the pandemic pushed much of the team offsite. That remote visibility kept the US Foods project on budget and on schedule despite the added coordination challenges of a distributed team.

As William Everland, Assistant Construction Manager at ESI Group USA, explained, Reconstruct's captures showed exactly where the embeds were off, letting him flag the issue to the team and get it corrected in time. That single catch alone prevented a rework that would have cost far more than the tool itself, underscoring the value of remote quality control on fast-moving, design-heavy projects.

ESI Group USA is a design-build construction firm. This project involved building a 350,000-square-foot distribution facility for US Foods in Sacramento, California, managed in part remotely during the pandemic.