Boost productivity and increase profits
Digital tools are rapidly transforming construction. A significant shift towards new technologies is observed in the effort of construction companies to come up with a new normal and deal successfully with competition from both inside and outside the industry.
The sooner players in construction realise the need for making their projects more agile and accessible the easier it will be for them to see more on site, boost productivity and eventually deliver sooner and increase their profits.
Free ebook: Why WhatsApp and Excel aren鈥檛 enough for running complex construction projects
Of course, finding and implementing the right tools in your projects isn鈥檛 always a walk in the park. Many project managers tell us that they still rely on WhatsApp, Messenger, or even Excel and emails for their project communication.
Good as they are, such tools aren鈥檛 made for construction and can鈥檛 provide you with the context you need when you receive an update from the site. The result? Fragmented communication between the site and the office, excessive admin workload, and information overkill for stakeholders involved in the project.
This is why industry-specific tools are so important. You should always be able to stay in touch with your teams on the field without losing sight of both the 3-6 week planning and the master schedule.
To achieve that, though, you need two things: digital solutions built for the construction industry and a single source of truth. Like that, you can bridge the gap between the site and the office while you keep your project safe against never-ending claims that can push your project back both in terms of time and budget.
So it quickly becomes clear that effective mobile field reporting is of paramount importance not just for the success but in the long run even for the survival of your construction company.
Before we dive into more information about how you can beat the competition by increasing site visibility, it鈥檚 a good idea to have a closer look at the main problems that the industry is battling against at the moment.
Common construction project problems
Construction projects are becoming more digital and agile day by day but, unfortunately, there is still a long way to go. As suggested by Dr. Jan Mischke, Partner at McKinsey Global Institute, the productivity gap between construction and the average economy is more than $1.6 trillion a year.
In that sense, there is significant room for improvement and many pitfalls to be tackled. In a few words, here are the main problems that the building sector should focus on:
Broken communication
Lack of collaboration is a big problem in many construction projects even today. The inability to connect in real-time with the numerous members of your team hurts your project both in terms of money and time.
Limited access to valuable project information naturally leads to broken communication and serious coordination problems which can force your schedule to fall behind.
Learn more: How to increase the speed of response in your construction sites
Furthermore, task updates and crucial project details aren鈥檛 delivered on time, as coordinating through emails and phone calls can simply take too long. Efficiency rates of 30% and budget overruns of 80% are only a few of the statistics that document the serious problem that construction is currently facing.
Digital tools can help the building sector with becoming more effective by establishing a faster and more straightforward communication process.
Poor management of resources
The lack of visibility in the field often generates a number of problems when it comes to resource management. More specifically:
- Subcontractors might arrive on site in vain.
- Materials might not be available the moment they are needed. Or they might be ordered too early leading to unnecessary waste.
- Site teams might be double booked leading to task delays.
An industry-specific reporting tool will allow construction companies to avoid such issues, due to the powerful project insights that it can provide. For instance, tracking materials across the supply chain with the help of sensors can facilitate the automatic ordering and delivery of new bunches on site. Like that, construction managers can always be confident that everything will be on the ground at the right time and place for the next task to begin without any delays.
Time-consuming claims
In construction, documentation is key. Many project and site managers spend a lot of time responding to claims that block their work and cost them thousands of Euros. The reason?
- Lack of alignment between the site and the office.
- Information overflow that fuels admin workload.
- Absence of standardisation in QHSE processes.
Relying on a construction-specific tool, like 六合彩论坛 for example, could help you and your site manager to regain the site visibility you need so that you can Trace everything that takes place on the field, help your teams take ownership of their tasks, and avoid interruptions that can increase the duration of your projects.
Data waste
The construction industry is throwing away almost 95% of the data that generates. In other words, construc