A conversation with Nicole Roman, Project Architect at FORGE
The Challenge: Junior Staff Had Questions. Senior Staff Had Answers. But Senior Staff Weren't Always Available to Help.
FORGE relies on a small group of senior staff to field complex code questions for the broader team. When the firm had a dedicated technical resource, that model worked — but over time, that role disappeared. The remaining experts who understood the code deeply were also the ones buried in projects and back-to-back meetings. Junior and mid-level staff often had no immediate source when needed quick answers — or had to wait.
"Code questions create bottlenecks where many people have questions and a select few have answers — meaning you might have to wait quite a bit to get a response," said Nicole Roman, Project Architect at FORGE. "And this bottleneck is only getting worse since the number of people you can go to within the firm with code questions is shrinking."
These bottlenecks came with real costs. When internal expertise wasn't available, questions either stalled projects or got escalated to an outside code consultant who FORGE keeps on retainer for complex code work. Simple questions that should have taken minutes were turning into hours-long waits — or outside invoices.
"A lot of junior staff know there's a code requirement out there — they just have no idea where to find it. You can burn through a lot of time staring at the code when you don't know which chapter you're even looking for."
The Solution: The Answer to FORGE's Code Problem Wasn't Hiring More Experts - It Was Making Every Team Member One.
FORGE adopted Ichi to address the code compliance bottleneck head-on. The immediate shift was in speed and independence: rather than tracking down a senior colleague or waiting hours for a response, any team member could now go directly to Ichi, get a sourced answer, and verify it themselves — without pulling anyone else into the conversation.
"I ask Ichi a code question, Ichi gives me an answer plus shows how it got there, and I verify that everything is correct," said Nicole Roman, Project Architect at FORGE. "All done in less than a minute whereas before it could take hours to get an answer."
Beyond speed, Ichi changed how FORGE handles the complexity of layered jurisdictions — arguably the higher-stakes problem. California jurisdictions often carry their own local amendments on top of the state code, and missing one can mean plan check comments, resubmittals, and project delays that are entirely avoidable. One missed amendment can unravel weeks of work — and it's exactly the kind of thing that can slip through when you're under a deadline.
"The local amendments are the ones that trip you up. You think you know the state requirement and then the city has changed it. And if you miss that, you're looking at plan check comments, resubmittals, going back and forth with the city — it adds up fast. Having one trusted source means I'm not bouncing between codes hoping I caught everything."
The Results: Code Went From the Firm's Biggest Bottleneck to a Problem All Staff Can Solve in Minutes.
The most immediate result was speed and independence. Code questions that once required tracking down a senior colleague — or escalating to an outside consultant — are now answered in under a minute by whoever is working on the problem. Senior architects, previously interrupted by staff for complex code questions, got that time back.
The profitability impact followed naturally. FORGE reduced outside consultant calls to only the most complex questions — shrinking retainer hours, cutting external invoices, and keeping more margin on every project. Code interpretations also became more consistent firm-wide, with every team member working from the same trusted source — meaning fewer misread requirements, fewer jurisdiction comments, and fewer costly resubmittals.
"We used to call our outside consultant pretty regularly — anything moderately complex and we were picking up the phone," said Roman. "With Ichi, we handle most of that ourselves now. Faster answers, fewer invoices, better margins. For a firm our size, that adds up."
Looking ahead, FORGE is excited to further integrate Ichi into firm operations — especially QA/QC checks. In the past, the firm has been flagged by jurisdictions for small mistakes that can slip through on plan sets: a missing stamp or signature on a single page, title blocks that weren't updated after revisions, or the wrong version of a consultant document included in the set. While the mistakes may be small, the impact is not — every additional round of comments can set a project back by weeks.
"Once you've seen a plan set a thousand times, it's hard to catch the small mistakes that result in jurisdiction comments. Having Ichi as a second set of eyes for a QA/QC check on all the small details before submitting — I mean, that could save weeks on even a single project and more than pay back the cost of Ichi. And that's just one example - there are lots of manual processes in QA/QC and CA where I could see Ichi improve our efficiency and save FORGE a ton of time."