Blog Viewer

5 Ways Document Management is Hurting your Construction Bottom Line

By Edward Williams posted 11-03-2022 07:23

  

Every construction contractor will agree that managing documents manually is a tedious process. This leads to poor coordination, human error, and missed files, often costing them money and time. This is why choosing a robust platform is crucial. It can dramatically reduce your troubles and keep your projects on track.


Here are the top five document management problems and five practical ways to overcome each.


  • Depending on manual coordination rather than transforming workflow digitally

For obvious reasons, every document manager on any construction project undergoes tremendous pressure. A single mess in any project process, be it a cost overrun or essential site rework, quickly shifts the focus to it. Document managers oversee numerous versions of thousands of data sheets while connecting various systems and ensuring this information is available to all stakeholders. 


Solution: One of the fundamental practices your company can adopt to provide better document management is to capture all workflow digitally. Construction software can help you with better document management, and as long as you can capture data digitally, you're one step ahead of the game.


  • Unautomated processes lead to excessive human errors

Unautomated processes lead to excessive human errors. When files aren't connected to specific jobs, misinterpretation of documents, including who or what they're supposed to be attached to, is common. This process can take a significant amount of time and create costly errors. 


Solution: Construction software lets an employee opening a document know what project the document is linked to. Through software, your business can quickly adapt this process to its needs. You can effectively eliminate numerous steps and create a user-friendly approach.


  • Losing valuable documents because of improper naming system

Many can suffer from an offensive organization of papers and names in your data. A typical document manager can effortlessly have thousands of other documents to maintain. You may spend hours searching for documents within your files without a system. 


Solution: One of the most effortless and practical ways to ensure better document management is by implementing good file naming standards. What do we mean by that? Get construction management software for your construction business, set a benchmark, and ensure you enforce it.


  • Document displacement impacts accountability 

When documents are lost, the blame goes on the document manager. This creates a diffusion of responsibility because laborers can blame the flawed document manager when the project runs late. But, for instance, what if the site workers begin to relax because they can blame the project for running late for that exact reason?


Solution: With construction software, everyone is liable. It can also save you from a potential construction defect lawsuit. Since the document will be in one easy place, no one can blame another level of the company structure for the project's delay.


  • Lack of real-time connectivity 

You will agree that a site project manager's everyday focus should be supporting their team. However, many frequently need to travel to a trailer for the latest round of documentation. 


Moreover, diverting them from their duties requires them to wait for feedback as document managers take data offline to make the needed changes. This line-up of tasks and interruptions to the workflow suggests a longer build timeline.


Solution: A more efficient process, for instance, involving field workers uploading a picture of a problem on site and sharing it instantly with an engineer, can suggest that project managers and their teams can complete projects on time. With a practical, streamlined tool, you can align all your on-site and off-site processes and make corrective decisions in hours instead of days.


Conclusion 

Potential factors such as operational efficiency make it practical for construction firms to integrate IT needs. The idea of saving costs makes it an ideal option; construction accounting software also adds cost efficiency and improved support opportunities as a bonus. Adopting cloud-based software for the construction industry should include preliminary checks for:


  • Ease of integration for any business-specific needs that can affect the business.
  • The range of services available with the software can benefit the construction process.

Constructing projects is a complicated function that affects multiple jobs and activities. Therefore, the software solution they adopt must be a one-stop solution for all the project and business requirements. Other than that, integrated construction accounting software can help you stay updated and stay on track by monitoring project progress. It saves you from a financial crisis as it enables transparency and allows you to maintain visibility of overall project operations. 


Furthermore, it allows employees to access data and make decisions more quickly.


To stay advantageous and efficient, you need to adopt construction technology, and software that connects the back office with the field team will facilitate your construction operations. Those who believe in operating efficiency and wish to work out the intricacies that crop up with each project should opt for integrated software.

0 comments
42 views

Permalink