From Paper to Digital: How CGC Cut Report Time and Beat the 48-Hour Clock with Aldoa

At a glance

The challenge: CGC is a family-run geotechnical and construction materials testing firm with 50–60 full time employees and an incredible reputation for providing high quality work to contractors, developers, and owners across Wisconsin. A paper-and-pencil reporting process couldn't keep up with Wisconsin's new special-inspection rules requiring reports delivered within 48 hours, leaving them exposed to backlogs, lost paperwork, and inconsistent client deliverables.

The solution: Aldoa, a customizable digital platform that captures data in the field, ties reports to interactive site maps, and exports client-ready PDFs in minutes.

The results:

• Up to 75% less time spent on reporting for field technicians.
• Client-ready summary reports cut from 2–3 hours to about 30 minutes; routine concrete reports out in 5–10 minutes.
• Daily report review down to 15–30 minutes, keeping CGC inside the 48-hour special-inspection window.
• Standardized, consistent reports and faster onboarding for new staff.

About CGC

CGC (the Construction and Geotechnical Consultants) is a Wisconsin firm of engineers and technicians who monitor construction activities, test soils and concrete, inspect rebar, and provide subsurface exploration for developers and owners. They are family-run, led by Mike Schultz, and that culture is the first thing employees tend to mention. It shows up in retention, too: several team members have spent the better part of a decade at the firm, and some have left and come back. Through no fault of their own, technology in the industry didn't move as fast as CGC did and the stakes were about to rise sharply.

The challenge: paper couldn't keep up with a 48-hour world

Like most of the industry, CGC ran on paper. Field technicians wrote reports on clipboards, handed them to a project manager or secretary, and someone re-typed everything into Excel or Word before a summary report could be assembled at the end of a project. Every handoff added time and risk. A single misplaced report could erase the only evidence that a technician had ever been on site. Re-entering field notes back at the office effectively doubled the work, often on time that couldn't be billed. Backlogs were a permanent fact of life, and because every engineer formatted reports their own way, secretaries had to spend extra time making sure the client-facing product was inconsistent.

Then the ground shifted. As Wisconsin moved to a special-inspection framework, CGC became obligated to deliver daily field reports to clients within 48 hours, a turnaround the old paper process simply could not support.

"We're obligated to get reports to clients within 48 hours. That's a real struggle when you're dealing with paper reports. That's almost impossible." — Matt Zimmerman, Construction Testing Supervisor

Why Aldoa: customization over compromise

CGC had evaluated digital solutions before and walked away, unwilling to bend decades of proven process around software that expected the firm to adapt to it. What made Aldoa different was the reverse approach: build the tool around how CGC already works. After Mike Schultz surfaced Aldoa and brought it to branch manager Tyler Schultz and supervisor Matt Zimmerman, a round of meetings centered on Aldoa's willingness to customize data collection, migration, and summarizing won the team over.

"CGC is who we are because of how we do it and what we do. Having Aldoa offer the opportunity to provide a customized solution for our data collection, data migration, and data summarizing was something we jumped on." — Tyler Schultz, Milwaukee Branch Manager

The solution: capture once, in the field

With Aldoa, CGC technicians enter data on a tablet at the job site and generate reports on the spot — no re-typing, no lost paper. Two capabilities stand out in daily use. First, forms are tied directly to interactive site maps, so data migrates between the two: a failing test from one day carries forward to the next technician, who can tap the pin on the map, see exactly what failed and where, and re-test. Copying the prior day's form brings all the setup with it — elevations, fill quantities, drawings, and locations so the repetitive work disappears.

Second, reporting is standardized and fast. A completed form exports to a client-ready PDF in a single step, and built-in standardized language gives field technicians the right wording at their fingertips, keeping every report consistent and professional. Even self-described non-technical staff adopted it quickly, and the everyday reliability wins are hard to argue with: digital records don't get wet, ink doesn't run, and no one has to decipher another person's handwriting.

The results: time back and reports out the door

The payoff shows up as time saved in the field, at the desk, and in the review queue. Technicians can now reclaim the hours they lost re-writing reports back at the office. Supervisors and engineers see the same effect on the back end, where assembling and reviewing client deliverables once consumed whole afternoons.

"For me personally? Oh gosh — 75%. Reports that used to take an hour or more now take maybe 10, 15 minutes." — Joe Harwick, Field Technician

The same story plays out at the supervisor level, where client-ready reporting has gone from a multi-hour task to a matter of minutes with a direct impact on the bottom line. 

"A report from scratch might take me two, three hours. I can get a report out in Aldoa and make it client-ready in about a half hour tops — concrete reports in 5, 10 minutes. It saves time and therefore saves us money." — Matt Zimmerman, Construction Testing Supervisor

For managers, daily review has shrunk to 15–30 minutes per report, and engineers estimate roughly 20% faster turnaround with drafts that can reach clients immediately. Crucially, that speed is what makes 48-hour special-inspection compliance realistic. And because every report now follows one standard format, the firm gets the consistency its reviewers long pushed for — plus easier training and onboarding as CGC grows, since new hires learn a single system instead of inheriting everyone's personal style.

More than software: time back for people

For a family-run firm, the human dividend matters as much as the hours saved. Getting reports done in the field, rather than back at the office at the end of a long day, gives people something the old process quietly took from them.

"Being a family-run company, everyone here understands that work isn't the end-all, be-all. When we save people time, we provide them more time with their friends and families. That's really key for us." — Tyler Schultz, Milwaukee Branch Manager

A partnership that improves every week

CGC points to the working relationship as much as the product. The team iterates on new forms directly with Aldoa's customer success team — describing what they need in the field, then testing and refining it together until it works exactly the way they work. The firm describes steady, weekly momentum, and when asked whether they'd recommend Aldoa to another firm, the answer across the team is unanimous: yes, especially for anyone still running on paper or spreadsheets.