Toll Brothers Centralizes Data and Drives Efficiency with M-Files, Saving 2-3 Hours Weekly for Over 2,000 Users and Cutting Licensing Costs by Over 30%
Key Highlights
Significant Cost Savings: Licensing expenses were slashed by over 30% compared to the previous solution.
Efficiency Gains: Employees save approximately 2–3 hours per week, with over 2,000 users leveraging the new solution.
Legacy System Retirement: An expected 28% annual savings by eliminating redundant data repositories and legacy applications.
Use Case
– Process Management
– Project Information Management
Industry
– Residential Homebuilding
– Real Estate Development
Country
United States
Company Overview
Toll Brothers, a Fortune 500 company, is the nation’s leading builder of luxury homes in the US, with a workforce of over 5,500 employees. The company operates in more than 60 markets across 24 states and boasts its own architectural, engineering, mortgage, title, land development, smart home technology, and landscaping subsidiaries. In addition, Toll Brothers develops master-planned resort-style golf course communities and runs its own lumber distribution, house component assembly, and manufacturing operations.
The company manages numerous construction projects and architectural designs. Given its massive portfolio and the need for seamless collaboration between internal and external teams, Toll Brothers required an efficient information automation solution that could scale with the company’s needs both now and in the future.
Core Challenges Prior to M-Files
Before implementing M-Files, Toll Brothers faced several bottlenecks in managing architectural plans and project documentation. The company relied on multiple disconnected legacy systems and manual processes, resulting in operational inefficiencies, version control issues, and difficulties in locating the right documents at the right time, which ultimately drove up costs.
The company needed a solution that would streamline document management, enhance collaboration with external contractors and partners, minimize operational waste, and curb expenses.
“We had a lot of systems that didn’t talk well to one another, which made it difficult to track updates and ensure consistency,” explained Mike Dyhoff, Director of Architectural Technology for Toll Architecture at Toll Brothers.
“Collaborating with M-Files has been a unique and highly responsive engagement. The team has been fantastic at helping us adapt M-Files to our specific workflows. Their willingness to listen and rapidly deploy feedback ensures our specialized requirements are met efficiently. This level of partnership, where changes are promptly rolled into production, is a rarity in the market. It makes us feel valued and completely confident in our ongoing journey with M-Files.”
— Mike Dyhoff, Director of Architectural Technology for Toll Architecture at Toll Brothers
The M-Files Solution
An Efficient Information Automation Platform
After evaluating several alternatives, Toll Brothers selected M-Files as its information automation vendor due to its metadata-driven framework, ease of use, and, above all, cost-effectiveness.
“The biggest driver behind choosing M-Files was the price point,” Mike stated. “It was significantly more affordable than the alternatives while still delivering all the functionalities we required.”
The M-Files deployment involved centralizing all architectural and project documentation, establishing a single source of truth for all working teams. Automated version control ensures that everyone operates using the most up-to-date documents. M-Files integrates seamlessly with Toll Brothers’ existing CAD and design applications, cutting down the need for manual data entry. Furthermore, the metadata-based search function allows users to instantly find files by project name, geographical location, or other key attributes.
Mike also emphasized the scalability of the platform:
“The scalability of M-Files enables Toll Brothers to onboard new users and support expanding projects as our company grows.”
Leveraging M-Files Hubshare to Centralize Information and Boost Collaboration
Toll Brothers also deployed M-Files Hubshare to optimize the entire lifecycle, centralizing data and enabling frictionless collaboration with external contractors and external business partners. This methodology eliminates former data access bottlenecks, update delays, and miscommunications, guaranteeing that all stakeholders have access to real-time, accurate information.
Results
Transforming Knowledge Management with M-Files and Hubshare
The implementation of M-Files and M-Files Hubshare revolutionized knowledge management workflows at Toll Brothers, resulting in major operational breakthroughs.
“Finding documents used to be a challenge, but now with M-Files, everything is right at our fingertips,” Mike said.
Teams across disparate locations can now access and update project files in real time, dramatically reducing communication errors and mistakes. Automating document organization and search workflows cut down administrative overhead, freeing employees to focus on higher-value tasks. The company is successfully driving toward a unified single source of truth for all architectural intelligence.
“Automating the metadata card in the admin console is incredibly useful. There are numerous triggers you can configure to automatically populate, hide, or show specific fields. This seamlessly guides users on exactly what data needs to be entered,” added Bobby Henry, Technology Specialist at Toll Brothers.
Substantial Savings and Enhanced Efficiency
By deploying M-Files, Toll Brothers achieved substantial savings, dropping license-associated costs by over 30% compared to their legacy solution. The transition to M-Files is projected to save approximately 28% annually through the decommissioning of redundant applications and data duplication clean-up. Employees save an average of 2–3 hours per week, and over 2,000 users have already experienced these direct efficiency improvements.
The platform provides centralized document governance, breaks down data silos, and curbs file duplication, while metadata search functionalities allow for rapid information retrieval.
“We have absolute confidence that the system will continue to advance. I believe we will roll it out even more broadly, and I am incredibly excited about its potential. Managing a massive data footprint was a daunting challenge, and lifting that burden allows us to align our focus on other aspects of the business. It has significantly elevated our product, services, and client relationships—it’s truly phenomenal. That’s the word that keeps coming to mind!”
— Mike Dyhoff, Director of Architectural Technology for Toll Architecture at Toll Brothers
Responsive Support and Tailored Solutions with M-Files Expert Services
Beyond core product capabilities, Toll Brothers highly values the responsive support and advisory consultations provided by M-Files Expert Services, which help tailor the platform to their precise workflows without bloating maintenance overhead.
“Collaborating with M-Files has been a unique and highly responsive engagement. The team has been fantastic at helping us adapt M-Files to our specific workflows. Their willingness to listen and rapidly deploy feedback ensures our specialized requirements are met efficiently. This level of partnership, where changes are promptly rolled into production, is a rarity in the market. It makes us feel valued and completely confident in our ongoing journey with M-Files,” Mike noted.
“There was a genuine sense of excitement and care coming from the entire team—from the CEO down to the support line. Everyone was deeply invested in our success and worked hard to provide everything we needed,” Bobby added.
Future Outlook
Following the successful rollout of M-Files, Toll Brothers plans to expand platform usage across other business divisions, including marketing, legal, and procurement teams. The company is also exploring deeper document categorization refinements and broader workflow automation capabilities.
“The capacity to swiftly align with company goals without sacrificing productivity or missing timelines, while simultaneously driving sales volumes through this platform, is a massive achievement for us. We are highly energized by what we are doing today and look forward to scaling our business alongside M-Files as a platform that grows with our ambitions,” Mike explained.
“We have absolute confidence that the system will continue to advance. I believe we will roll it out even more broadly, and I am incredibly excited about its potential. Managing a massive data footprint was a daunting challenge, and lifting that burden allows us to align our focus on other aspects of the business. It has significantly elevated our product, services, and client relationships—it’s truly phenomenal. That’s the word that keeps coming to mind!” Mike concluded.
Why M-Files?
M-Files is the leading platform for knowledge work automation. With the M-Files platform, professionals find information faster, work smarter, and achieve more. M-Files features an innovative metadata-driven architecture, an embedded workflow engine, and advanced artificial intelligence. This enables customers to eliminate information chaos, improve process efficiency, and automate security and compliance.
For more information, please visit https://litiko.com
*P.S. This article has been translated from the M-Files vendor website and is presented as a real-world case study of the platform’s deployment.
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