Field and office communication is essential to delivering construction projects on time and on budget. All too often, field and office teams work in their own little bubbles, and problems occurring outside the bubble are seen as “them problems.” At the end of the day, it’s the company that ends up paying the price for its siloed and disconnected teams.
Construction is a complex, dangerous, and expensive industry, and miscommunication comes at a high price. Unclearly defined workflows, lack of easy access to project information, document version confusion, and lack of real-time communication between the field and office are high-risk activities that can cost you.
Important tasks can slip through the cracks without clear and effective project communication, resulting in mistakes and rework. Rework costs the construction industry over $65 billion a year, and more than 50 percent of rework is caused by poor data and miscommunication.
On top of this, the industry spends more than $177 billion a year on labour for “non-optimal” activities. By non-optimal, we mean pointless and avoidable activities like:
When your teams have easy, 24-hour access to project information and an open line of communication via cloud-based construction management software, time and money spent on non-optimal activities decreases dramatically.
Construction projects need to run like a well-oiled machine; all components must play their part in the correct order. Communication breakdowns can result in scheduling conflicts that considerably delay a project or may even impact your entire pipeline. These delays can hurt your profit margins and your reputation.
In business, your reputation counts for a great deal. If the grapevine says your company is hard to work with; is disorganized and always scrambling; or can’t be trusted to deliver projects on time, it will affect your ability to land contracts and the long-term viability of the business.
Coordinating different contractors and teams on a very tight work schedule can be a challenging, stressful and often frustrating job. Add poor communication to the mix, and you risk pushing your best people over the edge, resulting in:
Besides this, construction is a high-stakes game, and mistakes are expensive. So when mistakes happen because of poor communication, we tend to play the blame game, which can quickly devolve into conflicts.
Contracts, compliance reports, material consumption and costs data, construction time tracking info, drawings and specs, and other documentation play a fundamental role in construction. They help to ensure a project is carried out according to plan.
In an industry with so many moving parts scattered across multiple locations, construction document management is the Achilles’ heel for many construction companies — because it’s not just storing documents.
Effective construction document management involves making project information and documentation available to anyone who might need them - from anywhere. It also involves creating processes for updating and sharing that information so that everyone on your team is always on the same page. Every revision opens up new opportunities for costly mistakes.
Simply moving traditional methods online isn’t enough to get the job done right. Your company may use more digital tools than ever, but going digital doesn’t necessarily mean your teams are more connected or collaborative. For that, you need to be on the cloud.
Cloud-based construction management software remains the ultimate collaborative technology, paving the way for a more efficient, transparent construction industry.
Choosing a cloud-based construction management software like Civalgo, which has a robust integration ecosystem, also allows you to automate time-intensive processes like construction time tracking and payroll, which can help you decrease payroll efforts by up to 60 percent.
You’ll also want to consider the user-friendliness of any prospective software, so even your most change-reluctant employees and subcontractors will be encouraged and able to use it with minimal training. When choosing the right cloud-based construction management software for your company, a simple, easy-to-use interface will yield the best results. Ready to see what we mean? Book a free demo today.
