Impact at a Glance
- Review time: Reduced from 4–6 weeks to 1–2 days
- ROI: 4:1 and greater
- Issues surfaced on a single project: ~800 flagged; 230 confirmed critical
The Challenge
Mill Creek Residential is one of the country's leading multifamily developers. They move fast and hold high standards. But before LightTable, their design quality assurance process was built on a model that was slow and expensive.
Like many developers, they hired multiple specialist consultants to peer-review each other's work. In theory, this review model was thorough. In practice, it created issues:
- Peer reviewers were often fully booked, creating queues that delayed feedback by weeks
- By the time comments arrived, design had already moved on. Two-thirds of issues were frequently already resolved or obsolete
- When real issues did surface, teams were forced to backtrack through substantial design work.
- The cost of maintaining this network of consultants was high, and the value was inconsistent.
"It was a very long process. It was very fragmented. And it was very expensive because you're hiring all these individuals to review others' work." — Shawn Poore, VP of Construction
Why LightTable
In July 2025, Mill Creek began working with LightTable on their first project together.
What made LightTable stand out:
- Turnaround time measured in days, not weeks.
- Cross-discipline coordination checks that caught what siloed reviews missed.
- A team with expert AEC backgrounds who understood the work.
- A product that evolved continuously based on customer feedback.
"The antiquated process was this clunky, Neanderthal thing. Working with LightTable was like getting a Ferrari." - Shawn Poore, VP of Construction
The Process
Today, Mill Creek integrates LightTable from the earliest stages of design. They bring LightTable in at schematic documents and run reviews iteratively through design development, so that feedback lands while the team can still act on it.
On the coordination side, LightTable handles the cross-discipline checks that are most time-consuming and error-prone to do manually: architecture against MEP, civil against plumbing, specs against drawings. Issues come back structured and prioritized, so the pre-con team can filter, validate, and get actionable comments to designers quickly.
When a new market or project comes online, the workflow is now straightforward to stand up. Shawn brought the same process from Colorado to Texas, and is expanding it across Mill Creek's Western region and beyond.
"You can have five people look at a set and everyone catches something different. LightTable fills those gaps." - Shawn Poore, VP of Construction
Ready to see LightTable on your drawings?
Run a backtest on a recent project and compare LightTable's findings to your change order history.
Results
Results
1. Dramatically faster review cycles What previously took four to six weeks now comes back in one to two days. In some cases, turnaround has been as fast as 12 hours. That's a reduction of 400% to 1,000% in review time. Feedback lands while design is still in motion, not after decisions are locked.
2. Coordination issues caught that humans consistently missed One standout example: LightTable identified a clash between invert elevations noted on civil, plumbing, and architectural drawings: none of which matched. It's the kind of multi-discipline cross-check that requires holding the entire document set in view simultaneously. Humans, working sequentially, routinely miss it.
3. Strong ROI, with compounding value over time Shawn estimates LightTable delivers a 4:1 ROI, or even 8:1 ROI. LightTable’s predictive capability, applied earlier in design, translates directly into contingency savings and fewer surprises in the field.
4. A product that keeps getting better Mill Creek has been working with LightTable for over a year and a half. In that time, every evolution of the platform has been an improvement. The LightTable team listens, acts, and ships, with Mill Creek seeing compounding results.
Why it matters
Most overruns are preventable. Two things change the equation: catching issues early and making it easy for every stakeholder to close the loop quickly. LightTable delivers both with construction-specific AI, structured reporting, and collaboration built in. That is how teams reduce RFIs, avoid change orders, and keep momentum.
