The construction industry is transforming faster than ever in the 20th century. In the next few years, we can anticipate that the complexity of infrastructures will continue to increase, especially with the ongoing supply chain uncertainty and labor shortage.
Now, the question is, what new solutions can be adapted to deal with the logistical challenges and to encourage stakeholder involvement? It begins with an efficient construction project management process.
As a project manager, you should consider yourself the leader who brings together all the moving parts and ensures that everything is aligned as planned. Suppose one little thing differs from what was agreed on during the planning phase. In that case, it can disrupt the flow of the entire project, leading to potential safety delays, increased costs, timeline delays, and more pressure from the project owners.
Knowing this, let’s refresh ourselves on best practices and tools to help your team keep all the balls rolling and level up your construction project management game this year and beyond. These resources and strategies will enable you to handle project complexity and other potential issues more proactively, ensuring the successful completion of all your ongoing and future construction projects.
1. Centralize Team Communication
Construction teams that coordinate project operations across various communication platforms (e.g., email, phone class, chat, and sticky notes on office desks) are not setting themselves up for success in the future of construction. When your communication channel is all over the place, it’s easy for critical information to slip, be overlooked, or get lost in the ethers. Without a shared place to access and store communication, you risk losing your historical records after project turnover or if a team member leaves the company.
Moreover, the growing emphasis on hybrid and remote work means stakeholders need an accessible and central platform to collaborate and share information in real time. This is why the first step to successful project management is ensuring that all communications occur in one centralized platform. In doing so, the flow and frequency of information become quicker, transparency and accountability between team members are stronger, and decision-making considerably improves.
Additionally, a centralized platform enables you to maintain an accurate record of all communications so teams can easily retrieve information and track decision-making and approvals throughout a project—and beyond.
With construction crew management software, teams have a dedicated tool to manage all communication regarding the project. This software allows you to:
- Centralize team communication and reduce loss of data: With flexible features, you can create, organize, and import internal and external communications directly from the centralized platform. This reduces the double-entry of information, so there’s less chance of manual errors and information loss.
- Access and organize project information: Maintain access to past and current project communication. Search terms, date range, location, and builder’s name to quickly find what you’re looking for. This way, you can spend less time digging through files and more time taking action.
- Connect your construction date: Link necessary documents to relevant project information, including Files, Issues, RFIs, photos, and more, so you’re no longer switching between software.
- Open-ended and unrestricted communication: Communicate freely and smoothly with outside stakeholders and inside teams.
2. Navigate Construction Schedule Complexity
Construction schedules are known to be very complex. From material deliveries to milestone due dates, each element or WBS has its timeline that must be integrated and coordinated into the overall schedule.
Construction projects involve multiple activities and events, many of which may occur at the same place and time. Without proper planning, these can lead to safety issues, delays, or contractual issues.
Moreover, you must have a central source of key start dates, deadlines, and more. This is where construction crew scheduling software comes in. This tool gives you and your construction teams a central source for the entire project schedule so you can:
- Share the construction schedule in real-time, keeping stakeholders in the loop: Thanks to our cloud-based and mobile-friendly views, teams can now access the schedule in the office, field, or wherever they work.
- Suggest instantaneous edits: When changes happen on the job site, teams can suggest updates to the project schedule that are instantly shared with the team in the office so they can adjust the new schedule. Teams can act and adapt quickly, reducing delays.
- Easily delegate tasks to stick to the schedule: Easily assign tasks to each team member according to the approved project schedule. Monitor, manage, and update your team’s work so you can mitigate any potential issues that can cause delays in the timeline.
- Check your team’s current workload: Check your organization’s current workload to easily see which team members can be freed up and which ones you can assign to the new activities. Having an itemized list of all your pending workload can help you know which tasks are critical and which ones need to be assigned.
3. Track Inventory Efficiently
Building a construction project consists of various materials, tools, and equipment. With so many components in managing construction projects, a platform where you can keep all your resources and assets in one place is extremely crucial.
Construction inventory management software is designed to optimize materials, tools, and equipment handling for construction projects. This software is essential for ensuring these resources are available at the right time and place to maintain budget control and prevent delays.
In addition, this software allows construction companies to track real-time inventory levels and ensure materials are delivered to the right construction site when needed. This leads to better forecasting, reduced instances of shortages or overstocking, and helps manage inventory across different locations, a common challenge in large-scale construction projects.
Here are other ways an inventory management software can help your business:
- Increased project efficiency: Optimized inventory management gives your team more visibility into what materials and supplies are left over from completed jobs or in storage. By enhancing inventory levels, your company can prevent overstocking and reduce wastage overall.
- Cost savings: This helps construction professionals control their budgets and better manage their overruns. It also prevents overstocking and avoids rush orders and stockouts. Depending on how your organization is set up and spread out, you can decide when to reorder from your vendor of choice at the right time and at a fair price.
- Improved productivity: The right inventory management platform can streamline productivity and workflow by allowing project managers to plan how resources can best be allocated across various job sites at different dates and times. This also helps prevent scheduling conflicts that waste time and money and threaten your company’s bottom line and reputation.
- Enhanced project planning: Inventory data from management software allows companies to understand what remaining inventory can be utilized for upcoming projects and provides a solid history of what items get used and which end up in storage for years. This practice doesn’t just save companies money upfront but also leads to enhanced decision-making and risk mitigation.
4. Keep Construction Documents in One Place
Construction projects often involve a long list of critical documents, such as contracts, drawings, specifications, permits, etc. However, manually handling these bulk of project documents can be error-prone, time-consuming, and inefficient. That’s where construction crew management software with a document monitoring feature comes in.
As we progress further into the digital era, document tracking is expected to become a standard and vital tool in the construction industry. It will enable construction professionals to stay on the same page in an increasingly competitive landscape.
- Enhanced information retrieval and searchability: Construction professionals can seamlessly retrieve the necessary project information with just a few clicks. Now, employees can swiftly locate the needed documents using unified search and search list features. This not only saves time but also enhances productivity, leading to the risk of errors stemming from outdated or misplaced information.
- Compliance and risk management: Utilize the added benefit of mitigating risks through various permission levels in document access. This promotes transparency and accountability, which is particularly advantageous in this industry. With the ability to manage document accessibility, project teams can effectively make informed decisions with selected stakeholders, reducing the likelihood of compliance issues.
- Space and cost savings: An online inventory management platform enhances productivity and efficiency, leading to more company savings. The expedited distribution and retrieval of documents result in quicker task completion, shortening the required man-hours and simultaneously lowering labor costs. Improved communication and collaboration also minimize the risk of costly misunderstandings and errors, thus saving on rework along the way.
Key Takeaway
In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing construction landscape, it’s more crucial than ever to have a reliable construction crew management software solution in place. By going for an advanced construction management tool, you can streamline many key operations of your project – from project scheduling and resource allocation to document tracking and more. Not only that, but you can also increase efficiency while driving down costs.
If you’re looking for a way to enhance your construction management in the best way possible, ensure accuracy in inventory, track documentation easily, and make real-time changes regarding your schedule on the fly, try Pro Crew Schedule.
