Providence Business News Names Gilbane Building Company to its 2021 Innovative Companies List
Providence, RI – November 24, 2021 – Gilbane Building Company was named to the Providence Business News 2021 Innovative Companies list, in recognition of the company’s commitment to transformation, its adaptive model, and focus on stimulating its culture of innovation.
A key driver of Gilbane’s innovation culture is through its Innovation Council which consists of a diverse group of innovative leaders representing all departments and service areas within the company. The council is both a cultural change management and decision-making body with autonomy to support, promote and unlock innovation. Its mission is to support a culture of innovation where employees are empowered to use creative thinking in a supportive environment to promote knowledge-sharing and improved efficiencies, that raise the bar for client satisfaction in Gilbane’s global construction management work.
“At Gilbane, we define innovation as our commitment to deliver shared value to our clients, partners, and our people,” said Kelly Benedict, chair of Gilbane’s Innovation Council and vice president, leading strategy, growth, and innovation. “Our goal is to continuously innovate to address industry and client challenges, and operational inefficiencies with scalable solutions that benefit all project stakeholders. We marry our Lean approach to problem-solving to our innovation methodology in order to unleash innovation throughout the company, whether it be incremental process improvement, investment in technology, the use of AI or transformational ideas and concepts. Our Innovation Council which is comprised of dynamic thinkers and problem-solvers from across the company, seeks to equip our people with the means to bring their best ideas to life.”
Through its very creation, the Council breaks down barriers and provides a conduit for all Gilbane employees to achieve new heights in innovation and a forum to showcase creativity and develop new ideas, taking bold steps in moving both Gilbane, and the construction management industry, forward.
The Innovation Accelerator
Gilbane utilizes an “Innovation Accelerator” which is an iterative and agile workflow based on incubator best practices modified that fits its business model. The Accelerator consists of five stages from ideate to celebrate and includes tools to help teams set up low-cost experiments and transparency on how to measure success to proof of concept. This approach allows Gilbane to harvest, mine and bring ideas to life, and just as importantly, eliminate ideas fast.
Idea Inventory
Gilbane hosts its portfolio of ideas on its internal innovation portal that is organized to show what stage ideas are in the accelerator process. The idea inventory is open to all employees so they can see the multiple projects and how they are being prioritized. This approach helps provide transparency, mitigates redundant activities, and allows the Innovation Council to assess its momentum. Currently, the Innovation Council is tracking over 60 ideas – 47 of which are active in various stages of the accelerator.
Innovation First Friday Events
Knowledge-sharing is a cornerstone of Gilbane’s efforts to foster its innovation culture. Earlier this year, the Innovation Council began hosting live, monthly companywide events on innovation in order to spur the exchange of ideas, inspire creativity, and share information on new solutions. Held on the first Friday of each month, the company convenes to share and discuss new innovations such as Gilbane’s robotics joint-venture with Nextera Robotics, new technologies and solutions to help clients, and transformational ideas to realize company goals.
About Gilbane Building Company
Gilbane provides a full slate of construction and facilities-related services – from pre-construction planning and integrated consulting capabilities to comprehensive construction management, general contracting, design-build, and facility management services – for clients across various markets. Founded in 1870 and still a privately held, family-owned company, Gilbane has more than 45 office locations worldwide. For more information, visit www.gilbaneco.com.