The construction industry has been slow to adopt digital initiatives. This situation has allowed other sectors to take advantage of the new digital solutions and improve their economic productivity as digitization can potentially improve the business’ productivity between 30% and 40%.
Although the benefits of this practice are established, many decision-makers still consider innovation as an optional investment rather than an essential instrument to business growth. Several top-level managers and executives focus all their efforts on the optimization of the business’ operations rather than developing innovation, threatening long-term productivity.
Here, we will explain six different ways in which digital tools help your business’ long-term growth and profitability.
- Fast-forward to your productivity objectives
- Stop delivering your projects late
- Forget about accidents
- Prevent labor shortage from affecting your business
- Identify your most valuable assets
- Always stay one step ahead
Lack of control and the need for rework represent an expensive problem in the construction industry. In the U.S., they can produce overheads of as much as 4.2 billion dollars every year. This information tells us that around 30% of the work done by construction companies falls under the category of rework.
This can be explained by many factors such as constant interruptions, poor communication, contractual conflicts, poor task delegation, among others. In other words, the lack of a structured plan to organize and carry out the project accordingly is massively hindering the productivity in the sector.
Although this issue can be improved with a more rigorous planning process, it can also represent an incredibly arduous task. The implementation of a structured plan often presents many obstacles that can put in jeopardy the execution of your projects thus, decreasing productivity. The use of digital tools for site supervision, contractors and subcontractors’ monitoring, site mapping, among others, can tremendously facilitate the planning process and improve its efficacy.
Successfully allocating tasks and communicating them on time as well as monitoring every single process in your projects can be extremely challenging, causing a lack of consistency in the productivity of your projects. According to studies, up to a 50% variation in productivity can be seen among two groups of workers in the same site and up to a 500% variation in two teams in different sites.
This situation renders the estimation of delivery dates very difficult, especially in the case of larger projects that can be more complex. On average, larger projects can take 20% longer than initial estimations. This current situation can hurt your business’ reputation and the relationships with your clients.
Digital tools like BulldozAIR for project management and site supervision will help businesses maintain a close-eye in all the processes of your sites. It will allow you to visually monitor and control the productivity of your site accurately through a system of notes that enhances communication and collaboration among team members.
The construction industry occupies the first place for workplace fatalities in the U.S., with the number of construction workers’ deaths rising 16% since 2012. Danger has always been an intrinsic part of construction sites as even small accidents like low-height falls can end up being fatal in this environment. Random debris on the floor such pointy objects or rough wood ends as well as unexpected holes or wall openings make this setting prone to accidents.
For this reason, construction professionals need to be extra diligent when dealing with safety issues on a site. It is crucial to accurately track and monitor accidents, workers’ attendance, safety meetings, among other safety-related issues. Unfortunately, even small mistakes or oversees in this process can bring serious consequences. The use of digital tools to create and efficiently distribute safety checklists and inspection forms to avoid accidents can make a huge difference in the progress of your projects.
Since recent years, construction professionals have been struggling to find suitable workforce in the industry. According to a talent development study for the construction industry, it was stated that 89% of businesses faced labor shortages. Moreover, the sector also presents one of the highest turnover rates. This situation is not only expensive as replacing staff can end up costing up to 20% of an individual’s base salary, but it can also slow down or stagnate business operations.
For this reason, it is vital for construction businesses to find a way to maintain their knowledge and experience within their organization to avoid losing any capabilities when they are faced with high turnovers.
Digital tools that allow users to record day-to-day operations can store your organization’s competencies and best practices to avoid losing valuable information if a staff decides to leave, transforming the digital solution into a real asset of business’ growth.
Managing construction sites is not an easy task. Site managers, contractors, workers, architects, engineers, among many others can take part of one project and work on simultaneous jobs at the same time. Monitoring the work of all of these collaborators can present a real challenge to anyone. Reports and email chains can increase rapidly and create a data-saturated environment. This overload of information makes it hard for construction professionals to identify the productive employees from the less-than-average ones correctly.
For this reason, maintaining a structured system to document and process information that allows accurate traceability of responsibilities is critical. Nevertheless, organizing such large amounts of data can be extremely time-consuming, hurting your productivity and potentially making you neglect other valuable tasks that you may be responsible for. Because of this, it is necessary that your business has access to digital tools that can display information of your project intuitively and straightforwardly to save you time but also provide you with valuable information that can allow you to identify the most valuable assets in your organization correctly.
Construction is by no means the most technological industry as over 50% of businesses in this sector report spending only 1% or less in technology per year. In addition to this, nearly 40% of companies in the sector mention that no technological implementation has been achieved due to lack of support given to this type of initiatives.
This situation creates excellent opportunities for businesses that are aiming to improve their productivity and stand out from competition as productivity in the sector is idle, and in countries such as France, Italy or the U.S., it has even decreased. According to the World Economic Forum, full digitization of the industry within ten years can save businesses worldwide between 0.7 to 1.2 trillion dollars, jumpstarting their profitability and productivity. For this reason, digital tools create a great business opportunity to stand out from competition and considerably improve results.
In conclusion, digitization and the use of digital tools offer businesses in the sector an excellent opportunity to improve their operations and increase their profitability considerably. For this reason, it is imperative that enterprises start considering adopting a more technological approach to their activities to modernize and improve the overall results of the industry.
