Robins & Morton: Unlocking Institutional Knowledge with Joist AI

About Robins & Morton

Robins & Morton is a nationally recognized construction firm specializing in healthcare, hospitality, and commercial construction. With 1500 employees, Robins & Morton is consistently ranked among the top 100 contractors in the U.S. and has completed over 1,700 projects across 37 states. Guided by its Building Forward® philosophy, Robins & Morton prioritizes innovation, strong partnerships, and a people-first mindset to deliver exceptional results.

Summary

Robins & Morton implemented Joist AI to increase access to their wealth of marketing knowledge and narratives. This partnership reduced deliverable development time across the board, enabling their marketing team to produce more high-quality proposals while eliminating operational bottlenecks.

The Challenge

A Forward-Thinking Firm Seeking a Smarter Way to Access Knowledge As an established construction firm in the AEC industry, Robins & Morton had amassed an extensive archive of institutional knowledge and marketing content over the years. After winning a project, the marketing team would review their submission, extract key details and narratives, and save them to their CRM.

"If there was new language we thought could be beneficial for somebody else down the road, we would save boilerplate and key facts to the knowledge section of our CRM and project-specific writeups to the project records," said Katy Klaproth, VP of Marketing & Communications. “While this method was great for tracking projects and documenting sales activities, the ability to search and reuse that content was not easy.”

This inability to find and repurpose important content created several operational burdens for Robins & Morton:
● Underutilization of valuable institutional knowledge
● Over-reliance on key team members to bridge knowledge gaps
● Frequent interruptions for already time-constrained project teams
● Less time for high-priority strategic work

Recognizing that AI excels at managing unstructured data, the team began exploring solutions to make their content more accessible.

The Solution

Joist AI: An AEC-Specific AI Built for Pursuit Enablement During their mission to find an AI solution, Laura Hernandez, Robins & Morton's Texas Division Marketing Director, met Joist AI's co-founder and CEO, Rohan Jawali, at a Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) event. Laura immediately recognized the value of the platform and brought it to her team as a potential solution. Unlike other AI products, Robins & Morton could tell that Joist AI had been developed by experienced AEC professionals who understood their team’s daily challenges and the workflows they were trying to improve.

"Rohan understood the challenges of AEC marketing. His prior industry experience was invaluable," said Klaproth.

Post implementation, it didn’t take the team long to realize that Joist AI offered far more than the searchability they were seeking.

"The ability to search and store content was the initial draw to Joist AI, but once we saw how it could help us repurpose and reuse content, it became clear that it was the right tool for us," said Klaproth. “After you upload your prior proposals, Joist AI understands not just your organization's people, projects, clients, and expertise, but also your organization's voice and style guide. All of this knowledge makes starting a new project fast and simple.”

The team has also discovered new applications beyond proposal development. Joist AI has become an essential tool in Robins & Morton’s communications efforts, helping to kick-start marcom activities.

"Being able to eliminate the blank page syndrome – every writer knows what that means – was a huge benefit," said Rachael Farr, Corporate Communications Director. “Joist AI has been a tremendous time-saver, and being able to research, anticipate questions we may be asked, pull together key points – it’s invaluable."

The Result

Saving Time, Reducing Frustration, and Empowering Growth Joist AI has quickly become a central part of Robins & Morton's marketing and communication efforts, even beyond pursuits. “If we tried to get rid of Joist AI now, we’d have a revolt. Our team members love it and rely on it daily,” notes Klaproth.

The impacts are clear:

1. Significant Time Savings – Robins & Morton has been able to reduce the time it takes to produce deliverables, including proposals, cover letters, resumes, award entries, and more.

“We're cutting down our work time by a significant amount,” said Farr. “Putting together an award entry would take anywhere from 25 to 30 hours. You could round that up to 30 hours comfortably, and now it’s closer to six hours. So that’s essentially one fifth of the time spent.”

2. Faster, More Effective Pursuits – One standout example was a last-minute aviation pursuit. The team had days—not weeks—to put together a compelling response. "We had a very short window—just a matter of days—to turn around a significant aviation proposal. Using Joist AI was incredibly helpful, as we could upload the RFP and quickly pull together key points, saving us so much time and giving us a strong starting point,” remembered Klaproth.

3. Streamlined Onboarding – Beyond efficiency, Joist AI has helped new employees quickly access institutional knowledge. “AI gives us an unlimited research capability,” said Farr. “If a new team member needs to understand a term or concept, they not only get a definition, but also the company-specific context behind it.”

4. Empowering Team Members – Joist AI has freed senior marketing professionals from acting as institutional knowledge gatekeepers, allowing them to focus on more strategic work. “I used to get constant messages asking if I remembered an RFP with certain language,” Klaproth shared. “Now, people can search for themselves. It’s a game changer.”

5. Reducing Field Team Interruption: Robins & Morton has been able to reduce redundant requests to project teams. "Before, our team members in the field would constantly get asked for the same information over and over, leading to frustration and wasted time. Now, with Joist AI, we’ve centralized everything in one place, making it much easier for the team to access what they need without having to chase down colleagues," said Farr.

Robins & Morton's successful implementation of Joist AI showcases their commitment to innovation and operational efficiency. By embracing AI technology, they have streamlined workflows, empowered their marketing team, and achieved their goal of unlocking the full potential of their invaluable institutional knowledge.

"Joist AI aligns with our commitment to innovation. It helps us work smarter, not harder, and that's exactly where we want to be."

Katy Klaproth
Robins & Morton
VP of Marketing &Communications

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