Increased productivity in the construction industry

Labor productivity in construction has remained relatively stagnant over the past two decades. With the ongoing battle of labor shortages still affecting the industry, contractors are trying to find ways to get the most productivity out of all of their project teams while ensuring safe job sites and satisfied customers.

For construction companies, continuous improvement is key to increasing productivity. Although labor productivity is increasing, in general, even inefficiencies such as lack of coordination and communication, poor management of schedules, duplication of documents, among others, can generate staggering costs. With these pain points in mind, companies can begin designing a winning digital strategy to improve efficiency where it matters most:

1. Reassess manual and administrative work

Chances are, your projects will continue to rely on manual processes that create unnecessary administrative work and are error-prone. Even if you've taken significant steps to eliminate old paper-like systems, many businesses are still using unconnected tools like Excel and sending documents back and forth via email attachments. Beyond wasting time, "honest" mistakes in a manual system like Excel can result in the loss of millions and even billions of dollars. While the stakes in your business may not be that high, if you're not using automation to control errors, you could still lose valuable time and profits.

When construction workflows are automated, you can reduce significant administrative burdens and streamline communications and tasks. Automation includes notifying the relevant person when action or approval is needed, improving the speed of response. While automation certainly improves efficiency, allowing staff to accomplish more, faster, it also helps reduce common human errors that can add up. With the combination of innovative people and technology, automation can help them streamline those problems with fewer errors.

2. Get the right technology on board

When it comes to increasing productivity, having a strategy with all project members adopting technology can be one of the fastest routes with the highest rewards. In addition to looking for tools that automate important workflows, here are the key types of technology to consider when looking to improve coordination and communication:

• Collaboration software: With a constant stream of design changes, it's a challenge to keep up with what's updated or what's changed. Missing information, inaccurate designs, and unclear designs lead to costly errors and change orders.
• Coordination software: A well-coordinated project can result in multi-million dollar savings and a project carried out according to the schedule. But traditional coordination processes can be costly and time-consuming. Coordination software puts collaboration in the hands of the entire project team to speed buildability reviews and identify and resolve conflicts before they arise.
• Productivity software: Construction productivity software enables teams to collect, manage, and collaborate in real-time on drawings, presentations, photos, issues, and more. When teams can easily access field software from their mobile devices, it helps improve productivity in countless ways, including reducing trips to and from the office. It also helps unify the entire project team into the current set, with access to all project information.
  
• Project management software: Communication suffers when common standards and workflows are not established. Cloud-based project management software connects the field and office in real-time; it also manages changes and other processes. The right project management software improves construction project delivery by supporting informed decision-making throughout the project lifecycle.
• Connected construction platforms: Connected construction platforms offer comprehensive, end-to-end technology tools that seamlessly connect the office and the construction site. Construction companies can use connected platforms as their digital foundation to improve collaboration, reduce waste and therefore improve productivity.

3. Create a single reliable source with data from scratch

Most of the tools listed above, particularly a connected build platform, will help provide a single reliable source of all project information and data. However, the sooner the entire project team can access data and collaborate in one place, the better; of course, better planning will improve productivity. However, when teams have a source of accurate data from the start, they can improve communications, mitigate issues faster, reduce errors and rework during the build phase.

Better yet, more data in planning processes means contractors can leverage this data on future projects to continue to improve the efficiency of their operations. Once common documentation standards are established, teams should also strive to analyze data from past projects to identify and remove barriers to productivity. By developing metrics to determine how accurate current planning processes are, contractors can set realistic benchmarks to ensure improvement.

4. Recognize productivity

Do you have individuals or teams that are helping drive higher productivity and project improvements? Don't let these efforts go unnoticed. It's important to celebrate and support those people who are working to change processes and implement technology to drive meaningful business results. These are also the people you can't afford to lose in a labor shortage.