As a project manager, creating daily construction reports is one of your essential tasks for managing construction. These reports may seem tedious at first – imagine, whipping up a report can take hours out of your schedule. However, these reports are critical since they keep you informed about project progress and delays and safeguard you and your company from costly lawsuits.
However, creating a construction daily report is easier said than done. It might be challenging to depend on your memory or scrawled notes to recall particular situations, teams, delays, deliveries, or weather swings after a long and busy day. So, how do you convey vital field updates to the office as quickly and efficiently as possible? In this article, we have consolidated a list of five tips for writing daily reports to save you time, money, and effort. But first, let us define what a daily construction report is.
What is A Construction Daily Report?
Daily construction reports contain all the facts and occurrences from a single day on the job. They show a document filled out with all the updated details and information on the project, usually by the project manager or a site manager. It usually includes a crew member roster, material and equipment utilization, events, job progress, work schedules, materials, quantities of materials, quality of work, delays, and non-conformance concerns. At a glance, anyone reading the report should see and understand vital elements such as contact information, duties and responsibilities, dates, places, weather, time, and other pertinent information.
Staying on top of the daily operations, challenges, and solutions is one essential trait of a successful project manager. As a result, daily site diaries must be filled up as occurrences occur. Luckily, a lot of digital technology and software for construction can help you streamline and optimize the process of updating reports. They will serve as the site’s official document or first record for contact information, scheduling, snagging, meetings, inventory, field notes, contention, accountability, and incident descriptions.
The Importance of Construction Daily Reports in Project Management
As stated earlier, construction daily reports and logs offer a complete account of a current construction project. These reports assist in keeping everyone in the loop and updated with the same information. They ensure that everyone is informed of any potential delays and that they are receiving regular updates on the project’s progress.
Construction daily reports and logs must be precise and detailed, given how vital these records are to the project’s success. Listed below are some of the purposes it can serve:
- Communicating and transmitting information with clients and other stakeholders
- Act as an official document regarding the project’s progress
- Maintain track of on-site events, activities, and delays
- Allow you to get insight into a project and improve its performance and efficiency
What Makes Up a Construction Daily Report?
An excellent and comprehensive construction daily report should have complete information regardless of the project’s size, scope, and complexity. It should be written and presented in a clear, concise, and easily understood by anyone, even with no technical background. This section lists the vital information presented in the construction daily report.
Project Information
Construction companies deal with multiple projects in different locations at the same time. The company deals with contractors, subcontractors, projects, and sites. As a result, basic project information such as the project name, location, who submitted the daily report, and the completion date must be recorded. Having a consistent or standardized naming pattern across your files will help you stay organized and save time when you need to look for a specific file.
Weather Condition
Weather conditions and changes are the leading cause of project delays – they might affect the job for that day or week. Weather is an essential aspect of construction that should be monitored daily. Weather changes, such as rain, snow, or intense sunshine, reduce worker productivity and raise the risk of accidents. While the weather can abruptly change hourly, you can still keep track of these with construction project software. You can get valuable insights from the weather’s influence on a specific day.
Crew Lists and Work Logs
If you have a lot of subcontractors and crews under your team, you should note who was present and what they did. Daily reporting relies heavily on work records since employees may have shifts that change depending on their shifts. A construction daily report should track the number of hours committed to specific projects by quickly writing down which teams were on-site, the number of workers, their hours, and their job description. Most companies have shifted from using the traditional pen-and-paper to project management software that offers an efficient crew management system.
Site Visits
The construction location may occasionally get visitors. It can be investors, media, corporate executives, and clients who want to take a quick look. You should record each time someone other than your team accesses the job site in your daily report, so you are aware of everyone on your site at a specific day or time.
Inventory List
A construction daily report assists you in keeping track of the inventory accessible and the quantity of those resources consumed each day. This information shows how much progress a team achieves every day and how they utilize the resources. It also helps you plan future orders by knowing what supplies you start and end each day with. Knowing how many and what kind of building supplies arrived on-site guarantees that your company gets the shipments they paid for.
Heavy machinery and equipment should be tracked – from the equipment on hand and the number of hours each machine was operated. This document contains information that may be used to keep the equipment in good working order.
Deliveries
If your delivery does not arrive on time, make a note of it. Late material deliveries might create significant delays on the job. Any incident that caused or might cause a delay must be included in your daily construction report. You will have a record of the missed delivery if your workforce is delayed in performing chores owing to a shortage of materials and create contingency plans to solve the problem.
Progress Photos and Attachments
Using your construction scheduling software to upload images is a terrific way to document the day’s happenings visually. Off-site supervisors may better understand the project’s progress by snapping and attaching photographs immediately from their phones, laptops, or desktops.
Site Safety Records
A daily report helps you keep track of any safety concerns or difficulties so they may be addressed and improved. Detailed, time-stamped daily reports give a precise image of everything that transpired on-site for a particular day in the case of a dispute. Any safety hazards on the job site should be noted in the construction site safety section. These daily observations also show if you’re improving the safety of your workplace month after month.
Daily Surveys
For optimum visibility, answer all relevant questions you want to monitor in your project daily. This survey works best when it’s tailored to your project’s requirements. Answer queries like “Did any visitors come to the site?” and “Did any scheduling delays happen?”
Five Tips to Improve the Way You Write Construction Daily Reports
As stated in the earlier reports, construction daily reports are a day-by-day account of delivered, outstanding, and missed work. It indicates what problems arose, how they were resolved, and any outstanding work or issues that need to be addressed. To make the best out of these construction daily reports, here are five tips that you can try out when going through the process:
Be as Detailed as Possible
While construction daily reports are essentially a detailed record of the day, you should be able to strike the appropriate balance between being too broad to render the daily report useless while still knowing when to delve into detail, such as when there is a stoppage or incident. Try to be very detailed while not overloading your report with unnecessary information.
Submit Your Reports on Time
The reports must be sent within the prescribed deadline. Much detail will be lost if you wait until the next day, and the information may be irrelevant when you try to submit it late.
Maintain a Clear and Concise Floor
While extensive reporting is required, it should also be clear and concise. Many people will be reading this, and not all may have a technical background. You want them to understand your reporting and not get lost in translation.
Be Open to Constructive Criticisms
While the job of filling out a construction daily report falls on the project manager’s responsibilities, it is still a good idea to encourage crew involvement. They might have some ideas and inputs on what can be included in the report.
Always Aim for Transparency
A daily report is a communication tool that should inform a diverse group of project team members to detect issues and track progress. Make sure to double-check, and even triple-check, that all information is correct before submitting it to your stakeholders.
