How Myrtle Beach Formalized Risk Management with Dependbuild

Overview

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a coastal city of just 39,000 residents, hosts over 17million visitors annually. This imbalance between population and demand places huge pressure on its infrastructure, with a less predictable tax base.

One urgent need was a new water transmission line connecting North Myrtle Beach to the water treatment plant in Myrtle Beach, which required careful planning due to adjacent infrastructure,

To better manage risks and streamline administration, the City tested Dependbuild, an AI-powered risk and knowledge management platform. The outcome? Greater visibility into risks.

Challenges

Myrtle Beach faced several common but critical challenges:

  •  Lack centralized risk management document repository
    • Project risks were evaluated informally through institutional knowledge spread across departments.
  •  Siloed data and inefficient reporting
    • Grant reporting and project updates required information from multiple departments, often manually retrieved. These information siloes create bottlenecks and slow down workflows.
  • Difficulty communicating project risks and needs
    •  Without centralized data, coordinating and planning has historically been slower than the City would like, especially given the projects they are wanting to kick off in the near future.

The Solution: Dependbuild

Through the Living Labs program, Myrtle Beach was quickly up and running with Dependbuild. The platform conducted an automated risk assessment just as construction on the water transmission line began.

The platform identified and assessed 35 unique risks as needing to be managed. The highest risks were those environmental in nature, and included:

  1. Presence of historic land contamination,
  2. Potential for environmental pollution and ecosystem disruption; and,
  3. Insurance requirements.

Upon investigation, each of these risks were implicitly known by Myrtle Beach and accounted for during their planning phase. However, with Dependbuild the project now had a transparent, centralized repository of each of these risks, enabling them to be more effectively communicated and managed.

For each risk, the City was provided with risk management option- i.e., recommendations to reduce, transfer of remove each of the assessed risks.

Project Outcomes & Benefits

The City reported several key benefits in utilizing Dependbuild, all without any additional staffing or external resources:

✅ The Platform Acted as a Centralized Source for Project Information

  • Easier handoffs and long-term knowledge retention
  • Increased awareness of planning, risk management documentation, and organizational controls already in place.

✅ Improved Risk Visibility

  • Clear and easy-to-understand overview of project risks
“We’ve thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with the City of Myrtle Beach on this pilot project,” said Conor O’Brien, CEO of Dependbuild. “The outcomes have been incredibly rewarding, and it’s gratifying to see our platform contribute to tangible. We’re excited to continue working with Myrtle Beach to explore new capabilities and drive even greater value for the city and its ambitious initiatives.”

What’s Next?

With ambitious plans for its community, Myrtle Beach continues to partner with Dependbuild to test new product capabilities in areas such as:

  • Project administration and funding
  • Labor and materials cost analysis
  • Wage compliance assessment
  • Asset managmeent and inspection reporting