How a Global Developer Cut Contract Risk and Freed $400M 70% Faster with AI

A global infrastructure company overseeing multibillion-dollar projects across refineries, ports, energy, and water systems faced a major operational challenge: managing the growing complexity of contracts at every stage of the project, starting from Project Initiation, during Execution and project closure.

Each Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) project involved thousands of pages of legal terms, technical drawings, and annexures. The use of disconnected tools and involvement of numerous stakeholders led to fragmented contract management, causing delays, compliance issues, and elevated legal and financial risk.

This level of complexity created recurring challenges throughout the project lifecycle:

1. Project Initiation

• High-risk clauses, like performance guarantees or notice periods, were often buried and discovered too late
• One in five clauses with the potential to trigger disputes over $10 million were found only after project kickoff
• 68 percent of critical obligations were discovered reactively, on average 127 days after execution
• Legal teams spent over 2,200 hours annually searching contracts manually, leading to delays and last-minute escalations

2. Project Delivery

• Data was scattered across Primavera schedules, SharePoint folders, and email inboxes
• 63 percent of Extension-of-Time (EoT) notices were submitted after deadlines
• 28 percent of deliverables missed cure periods without being flagged
• 34 percent of variation orders lacked supporting documentation, causing friction during reviews

3. Project Closure

• Final handovers were document-heavy and error-prone
• Project closeout timelines extended by an average of 9 months
• Over 12,000 documents per project had to be reconciled, delaying retention money releases
• 45 percent of final account disputes were traced to missing or incomplete documentation

Without a centralized system to manage obligations, track deadlines, and ensure complete handovers, contract management had become a critical weak point, affecting project delivery, cash flow, and profitability.

Project Objectives

To address these issues, the company aimed to implement a contract intelligence platform that would:

• Identify every contractual obligation from day one
• Maintain real-time visibility of milestones, notices, and deliverables
• Streamline closeout documentation and accelerate release of retention funds

Solution / Approach

We developed a secure, AI-powered platform to manage contracts from signature through final payment. By combining optical character recognition (OCR), large language models (LLMs), and scalable data pipelines, the system transformed contract workflows from manual and reactive to digital and proactive.

Capability 1: Smart Contract Initiation

• Keyword and Clause Extraction: Converted scanned contracts into searchable clause tables, reducing first-pass review to under 15 minutes
• Critical Clause Spotlight: Flagged high-risk clauses such as performance securities or notice windows
• Standards Comparison: Highlighted deviations from FIDIC, JCT, or CPWD templates
• Completeness Checks: Detected missing pages, misnumbered sections, or undefined terms to prevent downstream disputes

Capability 2: Project Performance Control

• Event Calendar: Extracted key deadlines and sent automated reminders via email and WhatsApp
• Schedule Alignment: Integrated with Primavera and MS Project to detect schedule slippage in advance
• Smart Correspondence Triage: Classified incoming documents as General, Critical, or Actionable to ensure timely attention
• Conversational AI Assistant: Answered natural-language queries, scheduled meetings, and automatically shared transcripts with action items

Impact: Missed Extension-of-Time notices dropped from 63 percent to 9 percent. Change order cycle time was reduced from 47 days to 12.

Capability 3: Frictionless Contract Closure

• Verified all variations and deliverables were documented and audit-ready
• Ensured signatures, seals, and references were complete
• Generated one-click digital closeout packages for clients, lenders, and regulators

Impact: Closeout documentation timelines dropped from 445 days to less than 120. Over $400 million in retention was released four times faster.

Technical Architecture

• Processing Layer: OCR, clause-level tagging, and vector embeddings via Databricks
• LLM Engine: Fine-tuned transformers trained on construction and legal language
• Security: Role-based access controls and audit logs
• Interface: Ad-hoc clause search, Excel/CSV exports, and intuitive workflows
• DevOps Pipeline: CI/CD and MLOps for continuous learning and feedback

Results and Impact

The platform delivered strong performance across three key dimensions: operations, finance, and strategy. It helped the company reduce risk, accelerate cash flow, and build repeatable contracting practices at scale.

Operational Gains

The platform replaced manual tasks with automation, improved response time, and helped teams focus on strategic work.

KPI	Baseline	Achieved	Impact
Contract review effort	4–6 person-weeks	3–5 person-days	↓ 90%
Missed-clause disputes	8–10	Fewer than 2	88% reduction in incidents
Schedule alerts	Manual/reactive	Automated, 30-day	Proactive
Closeout documentation	Over 500 days	120 days or less	↓ 76%
Change order turnaround	47 days	12 days	↓ 74%
Late EoT notices	63%	9%	↓ 54 points

Financial Impact

With faster cycles and fewer disputes, the company achieved measurable financial results.

• 10,000+ hours of legal and administrative effort reallocated
• $425 million in retention released faster, reducing borrowing costs by $9.5 million annually
• External legal spend for disputes reduced by 83 percent (from $4 million to $900,000)
• Achieved ROI greater than 80 percent with payback in under 12 months, generating over $62 million in savings over 3 years

Strategic Value

The platform created long-term strategic advantages for commercial and legal teams.

• Reduced contract markup time by 15 percent, improving bid speed
• Digital audit trails accepted by export credit agencies without additional covenants
• AI models improved with each contract processed, increasing clause accuracy from 92 to 97.4 percent

Key Takeaways

• AI can surface high-risk contract terms early, improving legal and operational alignment
• A unified platform reduces handoff delays between legal, commercial, and delivery teams
• Faster documentation leads directly to faster cash release
• A feedback loop improves model performance over time, compounding the business impact

Conclusion

Following successful implementation, the company expanded the platform use to include subcontract and supplier performance management, with a goal of protecting an additional $250 million in margin over the next five years.

If you manage high-value, complex contracts and want to reduce risk and accelerate outcomes, this approach delivers:

• 40 to 70 percent faster contract reviews
• 60 to 80 percent reduction in dispute and penalty exposure
• Over 70 percent faster closeouts and cash release

To learn more, contact connect@pravartan.com or connect with us on LinkedIn.