Driving change order performance with a Formula One strategy

Key Results

• 50+ hours of administrative work saved in just 2 months on one project

• 1–2 hours saved per change order through structured change management

• 100% billable work captured and documented, protecting project margins

• Full overview and control of all variations across the project

  
  

Challenge: Managing Changes Across Complex Infrastructure Projects

NRC Group is a listed Nordic infrastructure company operating across Norway, Sweden, and Finland with approximately 1800 employees and annual revenue of around NOK 6–7 billion. The company delivers rail, civil and maintenance services that are critical to regional mobility.

Projects of this scale inevitably involve design adjustments, unforeseen conditions, and scope changes during execution. As a result, effective change order management is essential to protecting project margins and ensure contractors are compensated for additional work performed.

Historically, variation orders and claims were often handled through email, spreadsheets, and fragmented file systems.

“What we have done before is that a lot of that documentation has been handled over email.” — Helene L. Beer-Svendsen, Project Engineer, NRC Norge

This made it difficult to maintain a clear overview of change requests, documentation, and financial consequences throughout the lifecycle of a project.

Without a structured system, project teams spent significant time tracking documentation, coordinating communication, and ensuring that all billable work was properly captured and followed up.

Solution: A Formula One Strategy for Change Management

To improve project productivity and execution, NRC Group has adopted what it calls a “Formula One” strategy, which is inspired by elite racing teams that assemble the best individual components to achieve peak performance.

Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all platform, NRC integrates best-of-breed solutions, each selected to solve a specific, high-impact business challenge.

Variation and change order management is one of the most financially critical processes in construction. To strengthen this capability, NRC selected Endre as its dedicated solution for managing contract changes and variations.

Endre enables project teams to:

• Centralize all change documentation and history

• Track changes from first notification to final resolution

• Maintain full overview of financial and progress-related impacts

• Integrate change management into NRC’s broader digital ecosystem

“The documentation we receive through Endre is very important for the economy of the project.” — Helene L. Beer-Svendsen, Project Engineer, NRC Norge

Endre captures and organizes change requests, supporting documentation, decisions, responses, financial impacts, and claim history — all within a structured, project-wide system.

By selecting specialized tools for the most critical project workflows, NRC strengthens both operational efficiency and financial control.

Impact: Measurable Time Savings and Financial Control

Since implementing Endre, NRC has seen clear operational improvements in how variations and change orders are managed across projects.

Administrative Time Savings

On the Kristiansholm project, NRC has documented substantial administrative savings within just the first two months of using Endre.

According to Arne Sollie, Project Manager at NRC Kept:

“By using Endre, we have saved more than 50 hours of administrative work in two months on the Kristiansholm project. At the same time, we have full overview and control of all changes and ensure that all billable work is captured and carried forward. It is also easy to continuously update the client on the cost impact. This represents significant value in the project.” — Arne Sollie, Project Manager, NRC

This corresponds to approximately 1–2 hours saved per change order, by eliminating manual coordination, email tracking, and spreadsheet updates.

Even at moderate change volumes, time savings quickly accumulate. Over the course of a full project lifecycle, this can translate into dozens, and potentially hundreds, of hours freed from administrative work, allowing project managers to focus more on execution, client dialogue, and financial follow-up.

Full Overview of All Changes

Beyond time savings, the most critical value lies in improved financial control.

By managing variations through Endre, project teams ensure that:

• All change-related documentation is stored in one place

• All billable work is captured and tracked

• All variations are documented from notification through settlement

• The risk of missing or losing change documentation is significantly reduced

This structured approach strengthens financial oversight and helps ensure that all additional work performed is properly documented and invoiced.

Improved Transparency Toward all Stakeholders

Another important benefit is improved communication with project owners and subcontractors.

With Endre, NRC can continuously update the client on the financial consequences of project changes and maintain clear documentation when discussing variations.

This creates more transparent and structured dialogue around scope changes, reducing misunderstandings and improving collaboration throughout the project lifecycle.

Conclusion

NRC Group’s approach illustrates a broader shift in construction technology strategy: selecting best-in-class tools for the most critical business processes rather than relying on a single all-in-one system.

By pairing this Formula One strategy with Endre’s focused capabilities in change order and variation management, NRC has strengthened both operational efficiency and financial control.

On the Kristiansholm project alone, the team saved more than 50 hours of administrative work in just two months, while ensuring full oversight of all variations and capturing all billable work.

In an industry where margins are tight and scope changes are inevitable, structured change management is not only a productivity improvement, it is a margin protection strategy.