AZURIA WATER SOLUTIONS TRANSFORMS PROJECT FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT WITH INEIGHT
Improving financial visibility and reducing project risk through integrated project controls
Based in Chesterfield, Missouri, Azuria Water Solutions delivers cutting-edge technology and rehabilitation solutions for wastewater, stormwater, and potable water pipelines. Over the past 50 years, the company has expanded its portfolio to encompass cradle-to-grave services, including manholes, service connections, sewer lines, storm lines, pump stations, and excavation work. With industry-leading projects throughout North America ranging from design and installation to maintenance and remediation, Azuria is committed to continuous improvement in safety, quality, and customer outcomes.
Azuria Water Solutions AT A GLANCE
LOCATION:
Chesterfield, Missouri
INDUSTRY
Water infrastructure
EMPLOYEES
7,000+
INEIGHT PRODUCTS
InEight Estimate
InEight Control
As Azuria Water Solutions expanded its underground utility rehabilitation operations across North America, the company needed a more standardized and integrated approach to managing project controls, financial reporting, and material procurement across its water and wastewater infrastructure projects. Azuria adopted InEight to replace disconnected Excel-based processes with a centralized digital platform. Since implementing InEight Estimate and InEight Control, Azuria has improved financial visibility, standardized workflows, streamlined change order management, and empowered project teams to proactively identify and address risks earlier in the project lifecycle.
SOLUTION BENEFITS:
Cost Confidence
Improved financial visibility and forecasting accuracy through standardized project controls and cost tracking
Operational Efficiency
Streamlined high-volume project management by integrating estimating, scheduling, financial reporting, and material procurement workflows into a single connected platform
Risk Reduction
Reduced project risk and late-stage budget surprises by enabling teams to identify cost variances and operational issues earlier in the project lifecycle
Managing Financial Visibility Across Fast-Paced, High-Volume Operations
As a premier water and wastewater infrastructure contractor, Azuria Water Solutions specializes in trenchless utility rehabilitation, delivering a mix of horizontal construction and general contracting projects across the U.S. and Canada. Azuria operates in a fast-paced environment with exceptionally high project volume, where project managers often oversee dozens of active projects simultaneously. “We are deeply schedule-dependent,” says Benjamin Brandt, Project Director at Azuria. “The critical path is very detailed, but the number of concurrent projects makes it challenging for PMs to focus on the details of every project.” Many projects have a short duration as well. Schedules frequently shift with little notice due to changing client requirements, access constraints, or other external factors.
“Prior to InEight, we were an Excel-based organization. As a result, project issues could remain hidden until late in the project lifecycle.”
- Benjamin Brandt, Project Director, Azuria
Material procurement also complicates already tight timelines. Materials are often custom ordered to exact specifications – particularly within the sewer lining division – which requires precise coordination between estimating, scheduling, cost control, and materials procurement to keep projects on track. For years, Azuria relied heavily on Excel for estimating and project financial management. However, inconsistent reporting processes limited visibility into true project performance and sometimes led to late-stage surprises. “We had a wide variety of project management competency and project financial competency. As a result, project issues could remain hidden until late in the project lifecycle,” Brandt says. To lower organizational risk and improve project controls, Azuria decided to transition to a digital platform that could serve as a single source of truth.
A Connected Platform for Standardized Project Delivery
Azuria Water Solutions turned to InEight to standardize processes, reduce redundancy, and improve transparency and financial discipline across the business. What made InEight stand out, Brandt says, was the platform’s deeply integrated ecosystem. “This was especially important for us considering the volume of projects for each project manager. Since our PMs manage dozens of small- to moderate-sized projects at once, integrated systems allow for us to automate as much as possible,” he explains. Today, Azuria has implemented InEight Estimate and InEight Control.
Azuria uses InEight Estimate to develop highly detailed estimates and pricing models, supporting granular cost visibility and complex change order management. Because materials are custom-ordered with exact dimensions – including diameter, material type, and length – it was critical for Azuria to capture that information within InEight Estimate for better visibility, scheduling, and reporting. “We use our schedule as a material procurement tool, so we needed to have that level of detail in our estimate,” Brandt says. “We use InEight Estimate to not only estimate costs and price our projects, but also to support detailed change orders.” Azuria also uses InEight Control to strengthen project financial management through standardized forecasting and percent-complete reporting. Integrated with the company’s ERP system and Primavera P6 scheduling platform, InEight Control streamlines Azuria’s month-end financial processes and connects project billings directly to the ERP.
Integrating Estimates, Schedules, Costs, and Forecasting for Better Outcomes
Together, InEight Estimate and InEight Control have created an automated, integrated environment that keeps Azuria’s estimates, schedules, costs, and actuals aligned, even as projects evolve rapidly. “InEight has raised the bar for cost tracking on our projects,” Brandt shares. “There are no mysteries anymore around how our projects are performing. Everyone knows where the project stands and why.” The integrated environment not only brings any issues to surface earlier but also reduces manual data entry and reconciliation between systems, giving Azuria’s project managers and leadership greater confidence in reported outcomes. “With InEight in place, if something is over budget, we see it immediately and can ask why before it becomes a bigger problem,” Brandt says.
“InEight has raised the bar for cost tracking on our projects. There are no mysteries anymore around how our projects are performing.”
- Benjamin Brandt, Project Director, Azuria
More Financial Transparency and Earlier Risk Identification
Overall, InEight has helped Azuria Water Solutions move toward more controlled, standardized processes, reducing risk and minimizing surprises across the organization. The company has also significantly enhanced financial transparency and visibility, especially because project managers are now better equipped to understand and explain project financial performance. “Now that we have more transparency in the InEight system, our PMs are becoming more savvy on telling a financial story pretty quickly,” Brandt says. “And they also tend to dig into the details a lot more if they’re over budget.” The improvement in financial savvy was underscored shortly after Azuria rolled out InEight in Canada. A longtime project manager – who was initially resistant to the new system – noticed the materials costs for a pipelining project climbing above budget.
After comparing materials cost against the estimate, he quickly realized that a currency conversion error had been made by the manufacturing arm. This mistake inflated the cost of materials by 40%. “The inflated cost was something our project manager caught within a day because InEight gives us the level of detail that allows us to drill down into the cause,” Brandt shares. “That same issue probably would have gotten buried with our previous process, and we would have taken a hit much later down the line.” Azuria has also seen measurable improvement in change order management since implementation. As the company continues tracking ROI, one metric they wanted to see was more approved change orders. According to Brandt, Azuria has experienced a 2x increase in change order-related revenue and gross profit since implementing InEight, despite other parallel business initiatives occurring at the same time.
“InEight provides a significant amount of granularity, which allows us to ask, ‘why are we going over budget here?’” Brandt shares. “We expected to see more change orders and get more of them approved – and that’s exactly what happened.”
- Benjamin Brandt, Project Director, Azuria
2x
2x Increase in Change Order Revenue
Azuria has experienced a twofold increase in change order-related revenue and gross profit with InEight.
40% Cost Inflation Identified in One Day
A project manager quickly uncovered a currency conversion error that inflated material costs by nearly 40%.
Expanding Digital Workflows for Long-term Operational Growth
Looking ahead, Azuria plans to expand its use of the InEight platform, including the adoption of InEight Plan & Progress and InEight Explore. “We are rolling out InEight Plan & Progress to another division of our company later this month,” Brandt says. “If that goes well, we may opt to replace our existing timekeeping system with InEight Plan & Progress for the legacy branch of our company.” As Azuria continues integrating newly acquired business units, the company is focused on improving data maturity, increasing visibility across operations, and enabling earned value and productivity tracking for additional divisions.
“The transition from Excel-based processes to InEight has given our teams a more centralized and scalable way to manage project controls, improving visibility and helping support more informed project decisions.”
- Benjamin Brandt, Project Director, Azuria
“When we have InEight Plan & Progress in place, we’ll be able to holistically look at all the labor hours charged versus how many hours we did, and get feedback around that cycle, so we can see how our crews are trending in terms of performance,” Brandt says. Azuria also plans to continue simplifying cost structures while still maintaining visibility by replacing manual, paper-based processes with digital systems. For Brandt, the operational improvements achieved with InEight have fundamentally changed how Azuria teams manage project delivery. “The transition from Excel-based processes to InEight has given our teams a more centralized and scalable way to manage project controls, improving visibility and helping support more informed project decisions,” he says.
ABOUT INEIGHT
InEight is a leader in construction project controls software, empowering over 850 companies taking on challenging projects in industries including construction and engineering; transportation infrastructure; mining; water; power and renewables; and oil, gas and chemical. Uniquely suited to capital construction and other complex work, our integrated, modular software manages projects worth over $1 trillion globally, taking control of project information management, costs, schedules, contracts, and construction operations, and delivering insights with advanced analytics and AI. InEight's solutions adapt and scale to meet the dynamic needs of modern construction, driving operational excellence and successful project outcomes. For more information, follow InEight on LinkedIn or visit InEight.com. © 2026 InEight, Inc. All Rights Reserved