The Rundown on Boudreau Pipeline
Boudreau Pipeline Corporation (BPC) is an underground utility contractor specializing in sewer, storm drain systems, and water and fire lines. Founded in 1997, BPC is one of the largest wet utility contractors in Southern California, with more than 270 team members and growing. Known for its perseverance and willingness to get the job done, BPC works on pipeline projects for leading residential and commercial builders, municipalities, utilities and contractors.
Employee Featured
Headquarters
Corona, CA
Construction Type
Underground utility contractor
Assets Tracked
228
Tenna Users
50+ users
The Challenge
BPC needed better visibility into its equipment fleet operations – more eyes on asset locations and more understanding around asset utilization. As Equipment Manager John Gauthier explained, “Equipment is one of the biggest assets. Aside from people, it’s where all our money goes, so to not manage that correctly – or not have visibility into that – just doesn’t make sense.”
Gauthier realized that at the core of visibility was the need for accurate and timely data. With more than 10 years of utilizing GPS systems and still not having access to the data needed, it was time to try something different.
Additionally, BPC’s current systems weren’t dedicated to off-road vehicles and required modification and manipulation to work with its fleet.
Pain Points
- Visibility into equipment locations
- Visibility into equipment utilization
- Access to accurate and timely equipment management data
- A construction-built technology partners
The Tenna Solution
Here’s what Boudreau Pipeline had to say about Tenna:
Follow-Through
“Everybody at Tenna is really willing to help, listen and dive in. They’re very solution minded. It’s not: we can’t do this. It’s: I don’t know how to do this, but let me get back to you, and I’m going to figure it out. And they follow through, which is huge. You get follow-through,” Gauthier said. “There is great communication with Tenna, which I really appreciate.”
Growth Mindset
“There is a lot that can be done using Tenna’s platform once we get technology in the hands of the guys,” Gauthier explained. “Centralizing the data into one place, having history to do research on and look back two-to-three years from now, and say, ‘How can we improve here? What are our pain points? Where do we need growth?’ All of that [data] is readily available.”
Technology Focused
About Tenna’s innovative approach, Gauthier said, “There’s no ceiling. They don’t view a ceiling. They don’t have a ceiling so that you can do whatever we can think of, whatever the market produces, or whatever the OEMs are coming out to partner with.” He continued, “Using technology to grow, to better manage the business, to better understand the business is very exciting.”
Forward-Thinking Partner
When it came to deciding on what new solution to adopt, BPC evaluated not only products on the market but also company cultures. According to Gauthier, they were looking for a partner that aligned with their values. BPC prides itself on being forward thinking, and Tenna is just that: a forward-thinking partner.
According to Gauthier, “Where Tenna stands out the most is they’re much more forward thinking [than the competition]. They’re not very linear in their approach. They’re very broad. They encompass the whole fleet, and they look at our business as a whole.”
He said, “When you go to a lot of competitors, they present you with what they have. They’re happy with what they have. Tenna had a more involved approach. They were willing to look at things and go, hey, that’s a good idea! It felt more like a partnership, which is what we were looking for and ultimately what made the decision for us to go with Tenna.”
Tenna’s background in construction also played a big factor in BPC’s buying decision and success story. Gauthier explained, “The fact that they had the same mindset, the same background, they knew our hurdles, our challenges – was very different from a lot of companies.”
This was especially true when approaching BPC’s off-road problem with hardware designed specifically for the construction industry. TennaCAGE’s steel enclosure was one such solution built for impact in BPC’s construction environments.
Employee Engagement
Gauthier admits that internal adoption was, at first, a struggle. He said, “We introduced tablets at the same time we introduced Tenna. For construction guys, it was a struggle. I will tell you that our team really, really didn’t want to go that route. They like paper. They liked the old way of doing things, but, here we are ten months in, and it’s the normal thing that we do. And they like it.”
Gauthier reported that not only are BPC’s employees seeing value and utilizing Tenna in their every day, but they’re also leveraging the platform in ways he didn’t expect. He explained, “There’s some people that really adopted the technology, really appreciate it, and really use it in ways that we didn’t anticipate – within different divisions. Our superintendents are using it way more than we ever thought they would.”
The Results
After implementing Tenna, Boudreau Pipeline is tracking utilization and asset locations, and reporting saved time and money with greater visibility into their equipment fleet management.
Smarter Utilization
BPC is now monitoring utilization data with Tenna and making smarter decisions around asset assignments. Gauthier said, “They will look at a machine and go, hey, I noticed you haven’t been using this. It’s only been working for two hours a day. I could really use this on the job over here.” Calling with these data points on underutilization in hand and showing the impact has sped up conversations and decision making at BPC. Gauthier reported that using Tenna’s Utilization and Idle Reports, BPC reduced 397 hours of idle time from August to September of 2023.
Improved Visibility
The greatest result? “Total visibility into machine population, how we’re using it, and utilization,” reported Gauthier. “With the information produced out of Tenna Idle Reports, BPC estimates saving somewhere between $15,000 to $19,000 per month and better communication amongst the team. And that is in depreciation fuel idle time reduction.”
Theft Prevention
Proper asset tracking has also assisted BPC in theft prevention. “There’s quite a bit of theft [in Southern California]. So being aware of our machine having curfews set up on them, having parameters, and having geofences are all very beneficial to keeping our machines where they belong,” Gauthier said.
What does Boudreau Pipeline like best about working with Tenna?
“The potential and the growth,” Gauthier said. “There’s so much more that we can incorporate into our business, and Tenna has been great about working with us to bring that. Some of that stuff is already coming to fruition, already being implemented, and brought to you. They really listen to us. And so if you come up with a good idea, they’re like, okay, that’s a good idea! And they run with it.”
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