What You'll Learn

• How Eddy Homes is rethinking their drafting and option management processes to scale efficiently.
• How Higharc’s platform promises to improve their sales team’s ability to engage customers.
• How a centralized approach to architectural data can reduce costly errors and streamline operations.

What You'll Need

• A clear vision for scaling your homebuilding operations.
• A commitment to transforming drafting, purchasing, and customer engagement workflows.
• A partner like Higharc to provide the technology to implement this vision.

‍The Problem

Eddy Homes found themselves grappling with inefficiencies in their operations as they continued to grow their business. The process of creating lot-specific plans was slow and labor-intensive, often taking days or even weeks. As Josh Ream, Eddy Homes’ Director of Operations, put it:

"Currently, creating lot-specific plans can take three days for an easy house and a week for a complicated one.

Discrepancies between brochures, architectural plans, and customer-facing materials frequently led to confusion and errors, frustrating both customers and internal teams. Tony Vescio, Architectural Drafter, highlighted this challenge:

"We spend a lot of time piecing together options like garages and elevations, which can lead to errors and inefficiencies."

These inefficiencies also created roadblocks for collaboration between teams, slowing down the entire process. Without a more scalable solution, Eddy Homes risked delays, miscommunication, and an inability to meet the growing demand in their markets.

The Hypothesis

Eddy Homes believed that by adopting Higharc, they could address these challenges head-on. Higharc’s centralized data model and automation capabilities offered a way to:

• Significantly reduce the time required to create lot-specific plans.
• Provide consistent, accurate information across drafting, sales, and customer-facing documents.
• Enable real-time visualization to enhance the customer experience.
• Scale operations efficiently without requiring additional resources.

The Solution

Centralizing Architectural Data

Eddy Homes is leveraging Higharc’s centralized data model to keep their plans, options, and documentation in sync. By managing all updates in one place, they ensure that any change is reflected instantly across drafting, sales, and purchasing materials. Josh noted: “With Higharc, we can make changes from a central data model and push it out in an hour or less. It’s huge for saving time when making business changes.”

Tony Vescio added: "Higharc allows us to push out a set of construction drawings for a start within an hour, which is going to help us with our sell-to-start date by a lot.”

Streamlining Option Management

To simplify the creation of custom plans, Eddy Homes has pre-configured their home designs and options within Higharc. This allows their team to quickly select and assemble combinations, saving time and reducing errors. As Tony explained: “With Higharc, it’s one file per home. In other programs, you’re managing 10 to 15 files per plan, which quickly adds up to hundreds of files.”

“My favorite thing about Higharc is the option management. We can set up plans with options ahead of time and piece them together without manually copying and pasting.” - Josh Ream, Director of Operations

Additionally, the automation capabilities significantly reduce manual steps:

“Higharc cuts my time in more than half. Instead of copying, pasting, measuring everything, and making sure it all fits, with Higharc, it’s just flip a switch, and it’s done.” - Charles Jones, Architectural Drafter

‍Enhancing Customer Visualization

Eddy Homes now offers customers the ability to see real-time updates to their home designs during the selection process. With Higharc’s visualization tools, customers can explore different options and see the impact instantly. Josh shared:

“The sales team will be able to show customers live changes to their floor plans and elevations, which is going to be a huge selling point for us.”

CJ emphasized the value of this feature: “It’s like building a car on the Audi site—customers can see how their house changes in real time, which helps them visualize their options.”

This capability has not only improved customer satisfaction but has also boosted the confidence of the sales team in presenting options.

Facilitating Team Collaboration

By providing consistent, up-to-date information across teams, Eddy Homes has improved collaboration between drafting, sales, and purchasing. Josh noted:

“Our teams are now on the same page, which makes the entire process smoother for everyone involved.”

Tony added:

“My favorite thing about Higharc is the web-based approach and the lack of need for super high-powered computer components. Being able to access it from a laptop if needed is very convenient.”

The Impact

Although Eddy Homes is still early in their implementation journey, they are already seeing promising results:

• Time Savings: Higharc is on track to reduce the time required for lot-specific plans from days to hours. As CJ highlighted:
  “Higharc cuts my time in more than half. Instead of copying, pasting, measuring everything, and making sure it all fits, with Higharc, it’s just flip a switch, and it’s done.”
• Improved Customer Experience: Customers can now visualize their options in real time, making the home buying process more engaging and transparent. Josh noted:
  “The ability to quickly switch between different elevations and garage styles in the showroom has amazed our team and will be a huge selling feature.”
• Enhanced Efficiency: By automating repetitive tasks, Eddy Homes anticipates freeing up resources to focus on growth and innovation. Tony remarked:
  “The speed of the web-based program is so much faster than any drafting software I’ve ever touched.”
• Scalability: Higharc’s capabilities have positioned Eddy Homes for seamless growth. Josh shared:
  “We’re planning to grow our business more, and Higharc will allow us to grow without having to add more drafters or costing guys.”

Josh summed up the potential of the partnership:

"The ability to make quick changes, reduce errors, and improve our processes is exactly what we need to grow our business.”

‍Reach out today to learn more about how a connected platform can bring your teams together, streamline the homebuilding process, and deliver a better buyer experience.

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